Rodney Terich Leonard was born in Nixburg, Alabama, and served in the Air Force during the Gulf War. He is the author of the poetry collection Sweetgum & Lightning (Four Way Books, 2021). His society profiles and poems have appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Red River Review, The Huffington Post, BOMB Magazine, The Cortland Review, Indolent Books-What Rough Beast, Four Way Review, the New York Times, the Amsterdam News, the Village Voice, For Colored Boys (anthology edited by Keith Boykin), and other publications. Leonard earned degrees from The New School, New York Univesity's Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia University, and Teachers College Columbia University. A Callaloo poetry fellow, Leonard lives in Manhattan.