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Leone Ross

@leone.ross

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Latest book: #thisoneskyday #popisho. Nommed: Women’s, Ondjaate, Goldsmiths, Edge Hill awards. NY Times Ed’s Choice. Won Manchester Fic Prize.

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Announcing….ONLINE course dates for your diary…😊Open to writers across the world.
All the ways you can work with me in 2026…and special Early Bird discounts for the month of March.

📘APRIL 5-26th
Introducing Three Tip Sundays
4-5.30pm UK time
Each session offers three top tips on the subject + writing time + QA
5th - Sex Writing
12th - Readying Yourself For The Novel
19th - Shaping A Short Story Collection
26th - Entering Writing Competitions.
£40 each session, £130 if you take all four.

BOOKING LINK IN BIO:
https://www.neuroqueercreative.com/event-details/three-tip-sundays-for-fiction-writers

📕MAY 23-24th
The Writing Care Weekend
Sat & Sun 10-4pm UK time
For writers who need sustenance, community, healing; are having problems with the inner judge, procrastination, writer’s block, momentum or loneliness!
£220. Early Bird £180
BY APPLICATION

Book here & link in bio: https://www.neuroqueercreative.com/writing-care-weekend

📒JULY 5-26th
The Gentle Apprenticeship
Four Sundays 3-6pm UK time
Are you an enthusiastic writer who feels the need for a substantial foundation in fiction writing? This course explores how to think like a writer, what a story really is, convincing characterisation and narrative structure. Lectures, group work, writing exercises and individual work. Suitable for beginners and intermediary writers
£415. Early Bird £390
BY APPLICATION

📗OCTOBER 10-11th
Sentence Bootcamp Weekend
Sat & Sun 10-4pm UK time
You might have great ideas for novels and short stories - but the sentences are the problem. Cliches, redundancy, purple prose…but you’re not sure how to identify the problems, much less fix them. For writers who want a complete guide to micro-editing.
£220. Early Bird £180

📙NOVEMBER 1st-DECEMBER 6th
The Novel Surgery
Five Sundays 3-5pm UK time
For writers who have completed at least 5,000 words of a novel. This course stress-tests your work and provides a helpful road map for momentum and progress.
£640; Early Bird £560
BY APPLICATION

NOTE: Each course offers one free spot, for those who could not otherwise afford attendance. Freebies are completely chosen on writing merit. Enquire FREEBIE. by @leone.ross

Genius. by @leone.ross

Oh, Piccy.
What a lovely man.
Rest, now.
1940-2026 by @leone.ross

Last of the 2026 flowers….😢 by @leone.ross

Crispy baked potatoes…
Me: topped with poached chicken, hummus, black garlic lentils, sugar snap peas, Parmesan and bacon.
Him: chicken gravy and bacon by @leone.ross

Musing. This is what I want, these days.
It becomes clearer. It distills, this intention of mine #redcity #sweetiecomebrushme #itscoming by @leone.ross

Mood. by @leone.ross

A delighted bee, twerking on my zinnias… by @leone.ross

What he sees… ♥️ by @leone.ross

You know I’m passionate about something when I take to video!
Above: me, chatting on about my qualifications to teach October’s LINE EDIT BOOT CAMP! It’s a comprehensive look at sentences – how to make them less wonky, how to make them more beautiful.
You don’t need AI; you need craft.

⏰ Oct 10 & 11, 1-5pm BST, online.
Leoneross@mac.com or this link:
https://www.neuroqueercreative.com/event-details/line-edit-boot-camp

#dearwritergirl #writingcraftforlife #writing #editing #writingcourses by @leone.ross

Simple Sunday lunch…peanut chicken stew with spinach, rice and plantain…it was really good!

Requested recipe (so simple)
Ingredients: chicken, seasonings, scallion or leeks, canned tomato, peanut butter, spinach, rice.
1: chop chicken into bite sized pieces - I use thigh or breast meat. Clean/wash/rub down - whatever you call it in your culture- in vinegar or lime juice and cold water.
2: Marinate for an hour - or overnight - in whatever spices or seasonings you habitually use. I use green seasoning, garlic, paprika, ginger, soy sauce, chili flakes, spring onions.
3: heat oil in a deep pan, and brown the chicken in batches. Transfer batches to a plate or bowl. When all browning done, return all di fowl back to the pot and add a large tin of chopped tomatoes. If necessary, add chicken stock, to make sure lightly covered with liquid. Turn everything down low, cover and simmer for 45 minutes.
4: Take a half cup or cup of tomatoey liquid from the pot, and melt in copious amounts of peanut butter, to taste. I use half a large jar, minimum. I prefer crunchy. Add peanutty sauce back to the pot. Add spinach leaves and continue to simmer for 10 more minutes. Check and see if you need more salt or chilli flakes.
5: serve with rice or bread or pasta and definitely fry plantain.
PS. I no longer make this with tomatoes, as my partner is allergic. I have tried a variety of different replacements, and have settled on either roasting sweet peppers and blending that with water, or just plain chicken stock, or chicken stock with homemade tomato-free ketchup (made from carrots, sweet pepper and parsnips). If anyone wants carrot ketchup recipe, lemmeno. It freezes beautifully. by @leone.ross

Seriously, who am I??
I have now become someone who knows it’s seed gathering season, as things begin to slow down and the new zinnias aren’t as big, and extra glass jars have to be found.

Burying myself deeper into small, colourful, nurturing things is also a kind of quiet defiance, a coping strategy. I see the world, I think you all know that. I see my privilege. I’m just holding on tight to that which is beautiful, right now. Deepening my novel. Cooking. Trying to make my practice with other writers more helpful, more nurturing, more effective.

Trying to slow the fizzing, buzzing concerns in my head.

These are the stories of this lot:

1-drying zinnia heads
2-coffee on the deck with a jar of marigold seeds and a bowl of aster heads
3-garden shoes full of flowers
4-sweet William
5-short video of an Angle Shade moth come to see me. As some of you know, I will always see this as a ‘keep writing’ blessing from the universe 😊😊😊
6-lovely red marigolds that arrived utterly destroyed - bastard delivery service - but we nurtured em back
7,8,17–my best loves, the zinnias, also known as Oedipuss flowers in this house. After my kitty died last year, the vet sent me seeds and there were zinnias in them. It’s become my way to remember her sweetest of spirits
9-the boy bought me red and pink gerbera daisies and they keep coming up as conjoined doubles - another coincidental blessing because I am writing about conjoined twins…
10- the sunflowers, decimated by squirrels, have fought back, but it’s late in the season, they are attacked by powdery mildew, and so have become these crooked, perfect little bundles of yellow last-attempt desperation 😊
11-Velvet Crush Dahlia heads - they were so fucked midsummer by the weather, we though they are dead, but two of the three plants fought back, and are now ridiculously, flagrantly blooming
12-more seed…
13&16-my best miracle this second season. Last year, I became addicted to White Asters & kept calling them Sade & Jill Scott &Tina Turner and Jezebel. They all died and I bawled. But I collected the seeds, and grew my own this year - a huge success. Hundreds of blooms.
15-unexpected gladioli!
18-Ombré double zinnias! by @leone.ross