Author

"Leslie, I just want to say that I read your piece in Outside on your incredible anniversary hike through Chilkoot Pass today, and was in tears. Not just for the struggles that you and Thomas overcame, but for the insightful, personal and emotional journey that shared, and what you'd dealt with leading up to the trip also. I want to tell you that I really appreciated the piece, your strength and openness as a human and a wife/mother/woman/adventurer/perseverer is apparent and so inspiring. Really amazing stuff, and I hope to read more of your work soon."
~Jess Smith | VP of OutsidePR

Raised by a photographer, then adopted by the Navajo Táchii’nii or Red Running into Water People Clan and the Tlingit Yéil Naa (Raven Moeity), K’ineix Kwáan (people of the Copper River Clan) from the Tsisk’w Hit (Owl House), Leslie grounds her stories in indigenous knowledge. Her Navajo name means Journey with Caring, Journey to Bring Out Gifts and that's the crux of her artistic intention, a storyteller that serves a place or people.

At twenty, she had white water rafted, spelunked, hiked, and ridden on horseback through nearly all the national parks in the United States and Canada when both her mother and eighteen-year-old brother die from hepatitis B. She is currently writing a memoir about the years that followed their death and how she turned to the natural world and the indigenous people most intimate to these places for answers.

"Leslie Hsu Oh is one of the most innovative outdoor writers today. Her prose style has a combination of spare lyricism, perfect rhythm and sensory power that seems almost like magic, bringing her readers fully into the worlds she re-creates. As a mother who goes on backcountry expeditions with her young children, and an adopted daughter of a Diné and Tlingit family, she also brings a perspective that's seldom heard — a voice capable of overturning outdated formulas that have long dominated the genre. She is part of a generation of writers who are redefining what it means to write about nature and adventure and to seek a more inclusive sense of place in the wild and the world." ~Katie Ives | Alpinist Magazine, Editor-in-Chief

She has photographed whales from a helicopter (and flown one), kayaked into a melting ice cave in Iceland, glacier-hiked and paraglided in the Alps, ice-climbed in Alaska, combat fished with bears, and been invited by Elders to ceremonies or sacred landscapes that are not open to outsiders. Her education in biology, ethnobotany, public health from Harvard University, and a MFA allows her to move freely from academic to commercial endeavors, while contributing to literary works and outlets like Alpinist, Alaska Magazine, Backpacker Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, First Alaskans Magazine, Fourth Genre, MIC, Outside Magazine, Parenting Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Sierra Magazine, Travel + Leisure, Washington Post.

Named a #ForceofNature, badass, #shemovesmountains, Leslie is a Champion of Change for the White House in Asian American and Pacific Islander Storytelling and Art, a Schweitzer Fellow for Life, and the Outdoor Editor for Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel.

Her award-winning work has been named among the distinguished stories of the year by Best American Essays and earned awards in North American Travel Journalist Association Awards, the Solas Award from Travelers’ Tales, Best Magazine Feature Writing Award in Annual Writer's Digest Competitions, and 1st place in Best Environmental Reporting from Alaska Press Club. Alaska Press Club judge said, "This piece is beautifully and sensitively written, and offers an inspiring story of science, understanding, cooperation and healing. It carefully navigates a deep cultural divide, taking readers to a spectacular natural setting that serves as a touchstone for exploring how people, place and natural resources are intimately connected." Read more about Leslie here.