Click on the video above to hear about Leslie’s experience with Writer’s Relief!
Leslie “Lale” Armstrong is an architect who knows all about building spaces for the performing arts as well as residential and commercial architecture and interiors. She also published The Little House, Collier Macmillan (1979); and Space for Dance: An Architectural Design Guide (1984). But when it came to building a successful submission strategy for her personal essays, Leslie Armstrong turned to the experts at Writer’s Relief. Now Leslie’s essays have been published or are forthcoming in The Coachella Review, Flumes Literary Journal, The Smart Set, and Spry. And with the help of Writer’s Relief, Leslie also secured a literary agent for her memoir—and in the spring of 2020, it was published!
Read on and watch the video to hear how Writer’s Relief continues to help Leslie achieve her publishing goals!
In Leslie’s Own Words
From the age of ten, I wanted to be an architect. Surprisingly, my ability to read, research, and write did far more for that dream than my abilities to draw and design, at least at the beginning. Back in the ’70s, many of my friends were buying small plots of land on which they hoped to build a house or cabin to escape city life, but they couldn’t afford an architect. In order to help them and others facing the same situation, I wrote The Little House. It was published in 1979 and has since found somewhat of a cult following.
Eventually, my husband, fellow writer John Bowers, started encouraging me to write about some of my life stories. I wrote my memoir, Girl Intrepid, and sent the prologue to Laura Shaine Cunningham, who suggested I send it to Writer’s Relief. I had no idea what that was, but Laura told me about her good experiences with them and that they could help me find an agent for my work.
Now, over five years later, I’m still working with Writer’s Relief. At first, we submitted excerpts of Girl Intrepid to literary journals. I trusted Writer’s Relief to get me to where I wanted to go, and in the spring of 2020, my memoir was published. Now I’m focusing on updating The Little House and writing a collection of short pieces about my life experiences. The two-month submission cycle at Writer’s Relief provides the perfect framework for me to work on this, since it keeps me writing. I’m still working part time and caring for my aging husband, so the discipline of regular submissions is helpful. And the many additional services they provide outside of targeting my submissions are definitely appreciated too!
More About Leslie
Leslie Armstrong has also been published or has work forthcoming in Isele Magazine, Poydras Review, riverSedge, and Slippery Elm. Reviews of her published memoir, Girl Intrepid: A New York Story of Privilege and Perseverance, are available on Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly. Advance praise for Girl Intrepid has compared it to the writing of Edith Wharton. A practicing architect and interior designer, Leslie is a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. She and her husband, author John Bowers, live in New York City. Leslie continues to work both as an architect and interior designer and is writing a collection of personal essays about the latter part of her life.
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