Brenda Joyce Leahy (Johnson) believes she was incredibly fortunate to grow up on a farm near Taber, Alberta, where hard work and beautiful prairie skies were a part of everyday life. In the evenings, reading and playing board games were the family’s favourite pastimes. Brenda now lives with her family near the Rocky Mountains in Calgary, Alberta. After over 20 years practising law, she has returned to her first love of writing fiction. She is a member of several writing organizations, including the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). The Art of Rebellion is profiled on the Humber School of Writers’ website at http://creativearts.humber.ca/programs/school-writers/published-books. Brenda is a member of the Historical Novel Society: http://www.historicalnovelsociety.org, and CANSCAIP (Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers) and leads a YA/MG writers’ critique group in Calgary. Recently, she was a member of an expert panel on Character Agency in YA, at the 2020 When Words Collide Conference, and Writing Up and Down the Children’s Literature Categories, at the 2021 When Words Collide Conference.

The Art of Rebellion is her first Young Adult novel, published by Rebelight Publishing, spring 2016.

“Robin Hood of the Prairies“, a short story by Brenda, was published in an anthology, YYC POP, Poetic Portraits of People, in August, 2020, by Frontenac House. Her story was also chosen for the YYC POP Poetry in Transit project, which displays excerpts of stories and poems on city buses and C-Train cars for fall 2020.

Flip, Flop, Flapjack!, is an historical picture book, published by Red Barn Books, and illustrated by Melissa Bruglemans-LaBelle, spring 2023.