SHANNON LEIGH (Sept. 15, 1987 - June 30, 2008) was featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and performed alongside Sage Francis, Talib Kweli, Saul Williams and Taalam Acey among others. She performed in over twenty states and two continents, authored three novels (Tetrarch, The Skin Tree, Isaac and Malachi) and produced a hip-hop album, Sanctuary, with Austin’s DJ F. Scott Godot. She was a cellist, cave diver, photographer, polymath, and linguist and a film producer for Atlanta-based Triple Negative Films. She was a pedant and an obscurantist, a lover of strange words, a sometimes spirit-worker, and a practitioner of Krav Maga, the official fighting style of the Israeli army. She was a member of the 2007 Atlanta Ark Amok Slam Team and took 3rd place at the 2007 National Poetry Slam Indies.

Shannon Leigh passed away on June 30, 2008. Support can be offered and found at community.livejournal.com/shannonswishes