This portrait was taken at The Los Angeles Photography Center, in 1986. I came to know Anja-Leigh Russell when she was working as the Editor for the M.S.I.A. publication "The Movement Newspaper," an alternative magazine that reported on events and personalities in the New Age movement.

Writer/Musician/Performer - Anja Leigh began writing poetry as a teenager. In her early 20's she picked up a guitar, added music to the poems, and traveled around the country as a folksinger in the 1970s. Eventually, she found her way to the stage in both dramatic and musical theatre roles in Los Angeles, including her one-woman show entitled 'Anja Leigh: The First Fifty Years – From Menstruation to Menopause in the Blink of an Eye.'

At the age of 60, Anja received her BA in Creative Writing in May 2003, from Cal State, Northridge, graduating Magna Cum Laude. Followed soon after by her MA in June 2005, at age 62! She has been teaching writing courses at private, state, and community colleges ever since. In the summer of 2009, she taught at Handong University in South Korea, and currently teaches for a community college in Tucson, Arizona.

Anja's poems have been published in BorderSenses, Diner, WordWrights, The Northridge Review, ROAR, Painted Moon Review, Quoin, Poets Against the War, and Woman Voices. Her love of the spoken word has brought her before audiences in New York City, San Francisco, Arizona and California venues.