Crafting Engaging LiteraryFiction
Explore captivating narratives that resonate with readers.
Crafting Engaging LiteraryFiction
Explore captivating narratives that resonate with readers.
About Shellie Leger
Storyteller
I am a Maine writer. I was born and raised in Rumford. I am sure if you know Maine this conjures up images of gritty Rumford girls. Good. It should and I am. I fled my home-town as any writer must at the age of 17. I have lived mostly in NYC and Cambridge, Massachusetts but I did return to Maine for 10 years in the nineties and have now returned again to my hopefully permanent home in West Paris. She lives with her three pigs, goat, two dogs, and seven cats.
I am a published writer of literary fiction. My three novels are character-driven and take place in the foothills of the Androscoggin, and their fictional towns are based on Rangeley, Andover and Rumford. Lonely Specks, The Treadwell Place , and Back Kingdom Road House all expose the decrepit underbelly of rural provincialism, and generations of salty women who show us what it looks like to stare life down. Women whose abandonment by death, family and hope drives them to hold tight to one another, respect their plight and move forward on the strength of their own convictions, creativity and belief in themselves.
My fourth novel, The Three Dead Mothers of Crater Plantation, is complete and in the process of querying. At 86,000 words, this novel brings us into the potato fields and lakes of Maine’s Aroostook County, along the border of Canada. A piece of literary fiction with elements of hyperrealism and a rural gothic aesthetic, we follow the Elsmore family saga from WWII, through the years of the robust 60s and 70s, and we land in the early 90s, from Maine, to Ireland and Newfoundland and finally, to New York City. It would fit well on the literary fiction shelf, women’s literature, and perhaps LGBTQIA.
Praise
"Back KIngdom Road House is one of those rare novels that gets so close to the human heart that you can touch it. From the very start, Leger’s novel unfolds with a tone and mood reminiscent of work by Marilynne Robinson, and the narrative never lets up. This is a novel that will stay with you well after you’ve finished." --Morgan Talty, author of Night of the Living Rez
"Back Kingdom Road House sparkles with darkness and humor and optimism; a cozy coming of age tale. Leger's voice is wholly her own."
--Cara Hoffman, author of So Much Pretty
"Back Kingdom Road House—like a badass lesbian version of Housekeeping—tracks the wild roundabout road that rebellious Liza takes as she leaves behind, then circles back to her sister Elspeth and their troubled yet loving mother, all grappling with a ‘batshit-crazy’ family legacy amidst the vividly depicted splendor and isolation of rural Maine. In Back Kingdom Road House, Shellie Leger creates a powerhouse portrait of two fierce generations of sisters. I love this frank, funky, darkly comic and deeply moving debut novel!"
-Elizabeth Searle, author of I’ll Show You Mine; Tonya & Nancy: the Rock Opera; A Four-Sided Bed
"Writing with rare candor about Dufy's struggle to love and be loved across two marriages and an affair, Shellie Leger has written a generous, insightful book. Leger's eye for the compelling detail that conveys character with insight and compassion is on full display here. Lonely Specks is an unflinching look at how we survive--and even thrive--against tremendous odds."
-Lisa Burke, Fiction Writer, Orion magazine, The Boston Globe
"Lonely Sparks is a lyrical, fierce, and sexy exploration of the nature of love. Shellie Leger has an acute psychological understanding of desire, craving, and the compulsion to rescue. She portrays with verve what it means to sacrifice one’s self for love of someone who is mentally ill."
-Burns Woodward, MD, clinical psychiatrist and author
Novels
