B. 1990
Leigh is a White woman, smiling slightly, with wavy, shoulder-length brown hair. She wears gold-rimmed glasses, a whLeigh is a White woman, smiling slightly, with wavy, shoulder-length brown hair. She wears gold-rimmed glasses, a white button-down t-shirt, and tan pants. She sits on a wooden bench, her hand wrapped around the handle of a cane. Greenery is blurred out in the background. ite button-down t-shirt, and tan pants. She sits on a wooden bench, her hand wrapped around the handle of a cane. Greenery is blurred out in the background.

Photo by Jodi Bullinger

Leigh Sugar (she/her) is a writer, an educator, and a movement artist based in Michigan. Her debut collection, FREELAND (Alice James Books, 2025), was a finalist for both the Alice James Award and the Jake Adam York Prize. She edited That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It: Prose and Poetry by Artists Teaching in Carceral Institutions (New Village Press, 2023). Sugar earned an MFA from New York University and an MPA in criminal justice policy from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She has taught academic and creative writing in various settings, including New York University, the Institute for Justice and Opportunity, the Justice Arts Coalition, the Poetry Foundation, and several prisons in Michigan. 

Sugar is a winner of the University of Michigan Hopwood Award and has published work in Poetry magazine, jubilat, the Split This Rock Poetry Festival, and other outlets. She assists the poet Rachel Zucker on the Commonplace Podcast: Conversations with Poets (and other people), and is the creator and a co-facilitator of Access Oriented Lit (AOL), an online literary series for disabled and chronically ill writers. She is a former professional dancer and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.