Leigh's other life -- his real life -- is tangible, indeed. The most important piece, he says, is Denise, "my best friend, my lover, my first reader, my unrelenting and yet kind critic, my support. If Plato was right, and there is indeed one person in the world who is your mirror, your perfect mate, then I've been lucky enough to stumble across mine." They have two children, Megen and Devon, "both of whom are displaying gifts which make me suspect that they're going to outperform their parents in any field they wish to choose. Now if we can just survive the teenage years that will be coming up. We share our house with a cat and a dog. The cat is, like me, a Macintosh fan; I suspect the dog is a DOS-based throwback."
Leigh is also a card-carrying member of the regular, workaday world. "I'd love to be able to make a living exclusively from writing," says Leigh, "but I do have a 'real' job, as Sales Manager for Kelly Services in Cincinnati. I came to Kelly as a temporary worker a dozen years ago, because the band I was playing with was dying, and I needed income. After a few assignments, the local branch started using me to teach other temporary employees the WANG word processor. If you'd asked me fifteen years ago where I'd end up, being a Sales Manager would have been among my last guesses. But I'm not complaining."
Other strains enter the picture as well. His undergraduate degree, in fine art and art education, was inspired by Sister Rose Julie de Sade, "the nun who taught my 8th grade class. During art class, she invariably insisted that we draw flowers; I wanted to draw other things, and did. On my next report card, I had a large, prominent 'F' for Art. I'd never had an 'F' before, never even came anywhere remotely close to a failing grade, and I was furious. When it came time to take the high school entrance test, I took the test for the art program. I passed, and I truly enjoyed showing her the letter that said I could sign up for art if I wished. I did. And I enjoyed it enough that I had wispy, romantic dreams of becoming a Capital-A Artist: a painter. I still occasionally do a pencil drawing or some pen and ink stuff, and lately I'm toying with computer-based graphics packages like Bryce2. I wish there were more time -- I'd love to pull out the watercolors again, or put a mound of clay on the wheel and see if I can still throw a pot."
Another major chord for Leigh has been music. His old band, Bluestone Ivory, appeared in nightclubs throughout Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas. Playing bass (a fretless Rickenbacker) and handling the majority of the lead vocals, he performed with the group in that gray area between rock and jazz, using the income to pay his way through school.
"Recently," he says, "the old band got together for a one night gig. We practiced a few times and had an utter blast. Amazing that four part harmonies six years old can be remembered. The playing was reasonable as long as I depended on muscle memory to play the right notes. As soon as I tried to think about the next chord, I was doomed. We left the gig with vague intentions of getting together once a month or so and we've had a few practices since. We'll see . . . I haven't played professionally for several years, but I'd love the excuse to give it a try."
Leigh has also been empowered by the martial art, aikido, which appears in most of his literary work. "I started studying in 1984 and passed my shodan (black belt) test in 1990 --which meant I was now officially a beginner," he says. "Aikido was like a powerful, energizing whirlwind, with the attacker coming in only to go back out flying head over heels." Particularly attractive: "the concept of blending with an attacker's own power and using it to defuse the attack."
Leigh's next novel will be The Rising (working title). "Like a lot of writers, I'm not comfortable going into detail about what I'm working on, for fear that if I talk too much about it, I won't need to write it anymore," he says. "But I can tell you that the story takes place on the same world as Dark Water's Embrace, thought it's not a sequel, precisely. It unfolds a century later and thus the main characters are not those of DWE, nor are the issues surrounding their conflict the same. Where DWE explored sexuality and the reproductive imperative, The Rising will explore cultural shifts, racial prejudice, and the inevitable conflicts that arise." Delivery date is the end of January.
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