Leslie Kimiko Ward is the recipient of a grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum for her forthcoming memoir 1000 Cranes. She has written and performed a thirty-minute monologue and one-woman-show based on similar content. Her first short story was published nearly fifteen years ago, in an anthology of lesbian erotic short fiction. She is a Creative Writing MFA dropout, with little understanding of the term exegesis. Leslie would like to thank her writing mentor, novelist Jo-Ann Mapson, for her stalwart advice and encouragement.