Leanne Grabel is a writer, illustrator, performer and retired special education teacher. In love with mixing genres, Grabel has written and produced numerous spoken-word multi-media shows, including "The Lighter Side of Chronic Depression"; "Anger: The Musical"; and "The Little Poet." Her books include Lonesome & Very Quarrelsome Heroes, Flirtations, Short Poems by a Short Person, Badgirls, and Gold Shoes, a collection of graphic prose poems.

Grabel was the 2020 recipient of Soapstone's Bread and Roses Award for contributions to women's literature in the Pacific Northwest. Brontosaurus Illustrated was published in 2022 by The Opiate Books; My Husband’s Eyebrows was published in 2022 by The Poetry Box; and Old with Jokes was published in 2023 by RuthieRocks Press.

Grabel and her husband Steve Sander started and ran Café Lena, Portland’s legendary poetry café, for a decade in the 90s.

And now . . . Grabel is going on an Alaskan cruise sponsored by The Nation magazine in mid-August 2023, hoping for inspiration for her next endeavor that will in some way help save democracy in America from fools.