“Not every cautionary
step is full proof.”
Author, Speaker, Writing Coach & Founder
Leah Vasquez is an indie author, speaker, writing coach, and founder of the Eastern Ontario Writers’ Festival and her companies. Her fiction books pay homage to her love for Canada and have charted as bestsellers in their respective categories. Her Pen to Paper podcast, featuring writing advice and guest authors, has run for four seasons.
She has expanded her reach throughout the reading and writing communities by founding the Eastern Ontario Writers’ Festival, a community-driven force that fosters education and connection for literature lovers in Eastern Ontario. The organization has just released their first ever Pen to Published Scholarship, designed to support one dedicated writer each year by providing a monetary gift to help them bring their book across the finish line, whether they choose the self-publishing or the traditional publishing route.
Passionate about helping new writers achieve their dreams, she founded her company WriteNow, a hub of monthly group coaching with the option to receive 1:1 high performance writing coaching, which combines aspects of personal development with the momentum necessary to complete a book.
She’s been a guest on several international podcasts, featured in many local newspaper articles, and has aired on the Morning Show CTV Ottawa.
Journey to Becoming an Author
Before Leah was called to be a writer, she aspired to become a cardiothoracic surgeon. Every cautionary decision she took to ensure her place in the medical world blew away on the wind as, one day, she lay on her trampoline and observed the clouds floating by. Then words of life sprang within her soul, and the trajectory of her life changed forever.
After graduating with honours from the Institute for Children’s Literature, she wrote her first book Redeemed From the Ashes, a fictional love story set during and after the Halifax Explosion of 1917. She published in 2016 and went on her first book tour in Halifax to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Canadian disaster tragedy and spoke at the Word on the Street Festival and at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.
Her subsequent books feature murder, blackmail, and treasure hunting during Cariboo Goldrush of BC and finding unconditional love where the Canol oil pipeline was built during WWII in the Northwest Territories.
