Leslie Larson grew up in San Diego, California, and attended the University of California, San Diego, where she earned a degree in English Literature. She has spent the past twenty-odd years in the San Francisco Bay Area where she works as a freelance writer—writing everything from book reviews to television spots, newsletters, print ads, and feature stories. For the past decade she has been a senior writer at the University of California Press. During all those years she was also writing fiction and has just completed her second novel. Her work has appeared in The Women's Review of Books, East Bay Express, and Faultline, among other publications.

Leslie was in her twenties when she met Grace Hills, the subject of her essay. They were brought together by Project Read, an adult literacy program run by the San Francisco Public Library. Leslie is a passionate advocate for literacy. She has worked her entire adult life for small publishers and has tutored reading in adult literacy programs as well as in the Oakland public schools.

Grace tells the story of a seventy-four-year-old woman who struggles to learn—not only to read, but to write. And not just to write, but to write poetry. Her patience and perseverance overcome a barrage of obstacles—-including the fading enthusiasm of her twenty-something year old tutor.

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