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Leslie Hsu Oh

Travel Writer | Photographer | Editor | seen in T+L, NatGeo, CNT,Outside, Parents, Smithsonian

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I first met Ms. Oh at the Writing Center where we worked together as writing tutors and where she exemplified the tenants of one-on-one teaching. Later I had the pleasure of being a student in her Creative Nonfiction Workshop. In the past few years that I have known her, I’ve witnessed her help students gain confidence, articulate ideas, acquire strategies, and learn the skills to effectively navigate their own writing process. Ms. Oh has the ability to offer insightful feedback without forcing her opinions about how a student should develop a piece. This gift is a reflection of her philosophy as writer and a writing teacher: the ultimate control of a piece belongs to the author, and the best education occurs when a student is fully engaged in their own process. Her ability to engage her students in critical thinking makes her invaluable as an educator. Ms. Oh’s availability to her students promotes ideal student work. An essay I work shopped for her class, “Good Neighbors,” was selected for presentation and publication in UAA’s Student Showcase Program, where I was the sole award recipient of the English students. While I was working on this piece, Ms. Oh offered detailed feedback on multiple drafts that encouraged me to work hard at perfecting and elevating my language; she asked the kind of perceptive questions that led me to my own conclusions about what best serves my work. In addition, she was present during my presentation where her support and encouragement gave me great confidence. I recommend Leslie Hsu Oh to you without reservation. I cannot emphasize enough the value of educators like Ms. Oh and the importance of the subject matter she teaches. Leslie Oh and the creative writing classes are valuable assets to the English Department and to the University’s student body.
~Mary Harris, President, Sigma Tau Delta, English Honor Society and Editor, Understory:

In 1998, Leslie taught public health at Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare. In 2007, after earning her MFA, she began teaching creative writing and computer information and office systems at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She has also taught for 49 Writing Center and Anchorage School District, Advanced Academy Writing Institute, and Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference. Now, she’s at Write Like a Honey Badger.

Headshot of all three instructors (Amanda, Jessica, and Leslie)

Student Feedback on online CWLAA260A: Introduction to Creative Writing:
• I am absolutely amazed with everything I learned this semester in my CWLA A260 course. I really appreciate the chance to have taken this class and learn the key components to apply in my writing. I didn’t think a web based course would have provided as much what felt like “hands on learning” as it did. I thought you were (professor) there every step of the way to walk us through the assignments, and I am very grateful for that. The helpful e-mail and black board reminders were wonderful. I honestly don’t have anything I would change. I also loved receiving criticism from other students as well as providing it. I think the structure of this class is amazing and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
• What I loved most about this class was the teamwork and constructive criticism I got from the classmates who looked at my work. I liked how we got to share our writings and do stuff on discussion board. I found it very refreshing and admittedly, I was constantly checking my blackboard on my iPhone for new comments on my blogs, I was that excited.
• I enjoyed receiving feedback from other writers! I don’t usually give my writing to my friends because I worry too much about what they think of me, or that they’ll be a bit biased because we’re friends. Sharing with people I don’t know very well was very refreshing, and it allowed me to get honest and unbiased opinions and criticism. I can’t think of anything that would improve the course significantly, I enjoyed it plenty as is.
• I have learned from this class how to inform myself as a writer. I am still totally impressed with all the websites from other authors we were assigned for homework. I have become more open and vocal about what I want to do with family and friends around me. This has led those whom I trust and respect in my life giving me information too. What I most enjoyed from this class was the chance to write. It may seem odd to read that but it’s true. This is a big step for me in my personal growth. I also enjoyed the blog prompts and how my mind could go in so many directions trying to land on “the” idea to write about. I like the set-up of the BB site; most personal and easiest one I have interacted with. I enjoyed the student feedback and how I improved through the semester with giving the feedback as well. I enjoyed joy I haven’t felt in decades because I was putting action to my dream. I enjoyed the course and have already been recommending to some friends to take this class…and how glad they were to know it was online!
• I learned so many things, technique, the voice of innocence, the voice of experience, how to describe. Each assignment gave me something new to apply to my writing. I had never taken a creative writing class in college and have focused mainly on technical writing as a paralegal student. I was able to explore my creativity and give new styles of writing a go. I learned a great deal about dialogue writing and it amazes me how much emotion and life you bring to a story with just a conversation. The greatest thing this class has taught me is the value of criticism. Reading the comments of my peers and teacher has helped me to grow as a writer this semester. It isn’t very often that you get weekly feedback on you writing! I learned so much about my own writing and what I need to improve it from reading the comments I received. I will try to apply the advice I have received and strive to become a better writer.
• First off I would like to start with thanking you for offering this class. I feel that I have grown a lot as a writer. I say that even though it is not anything I ever viewed myself as, that is until I took this class. I learned an almost overwhelming amount of information regarding creative writing. I learned a good amount about how to develop characters, plots, paint the scene, and even how to sell my works. The most enjoyable thing about this class was the selected readings. Every week I got introduced to a new author, sometimes more. And for a one semester class that is pretty impressive.
• My writing has really been elevated because of this class and has also given me a new view on the world of writing. In some strange way this has made my whole college experience a lot more enjoyable than it was before.
• I really like the fact you covered many different exercises because we are all on different levels of writing. All of comments on my posts from the other classmates really helped me with my revisions. I feel a second set of eyes and suggestions are more than beneficial to writing. This works for me overall and I hope to use these skills in my career later on. Overall, this has been a wonderful and enjoyable class. Thank you!

Student Feedback on campus-based CWLAA260A: Introduction to Creative Writing:
• Leslie Hsu Oh was my first CWLA teacher and she cares so much about her students, making them just as much of a part of the class as the books we have to buy. I have taken this class twice now and it continues to be the best class I have ever chosen to take.
• Loved this class. We had an awesome instructor, great material to read from. Also, Leslie’s relationship with other writers and their willingness to visit our class was a wonderful and rare experience.
• I love this course; the teacher and the way she taught got me lovestruck, and I would take the course again if I had the means to! This was a wonderfully taught course, and I learned an incredible amount I honestly didn’t think I would have before.
• This class was worth the money for both tuition and books. That is the first time I have been able to say that for any class. I have loved other classes, but not continued to study subject after the class. I will continue to study in this field because of this class.
• I found this course to be fulfilling. It was a break from my general field of study and am glad to have taken it. I believe the multiply genres helped me to both better understand each genre and which one I preferred to write. Also this course has helped me understand my academic voice and how my creative voice affects my academic voice. I think it was wonderful!! Morning pages were a life saver.

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@eo_thesnowboarder is competing at @usasasnow @cop @eo_thesnowboarder is competing at @usasasnow @coppermtn in @visitcolorado by himself. Poor guy had to share a team house with coaches only. Hope next yr some @teampalisadestahoe #sbx teammates can stay at our team house. I wish his dad or I could’ve taken him but @ko.snowboarder was home from @uofwa just long enough to remind me how nice it is to have a #daugter who anticipates my needs and offers an extra hand without my asking. 
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I feel like one piece of my heart is in Washington state and the other is in Colorado and then theres another 2 pieces that are at school today on a dreadful snowstorm day. It’s so hard to be a parent. Nobody tells you that your entire job is to prepare your kids to survive without you.
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#resilience #sbxlife #boardercross #boardercross🏂 
M #snowboardlife #snowboarding #snowboarding🏂 #snowboardingisfun #snowboardingisfun🏂
Year 3 of @nthsflyfishing club partnership with @m Year 3 of @nthsflyfishing club partnership with @marvin.racine.7 and @mattheronflyfishing @casthope ! 

My kids and I are holding a 2 million yr old #fish that only lives in @pyramid_lake ! This is the first #lahontancuttthroattrout we have ever held since we started in 2022 to brainstorm @ko.snowboarder @girlscouts #goldaward !! (And no, we have never caught one). Gratitude to Kendrick and Samantha Miller (Numu) and their kids (8 and 5) — who both received #flyrods from us on March 15, 2025 — for letting us hold this magnificent fish. Who do you think caught it??
 
As you can see, we are so excited and overwhelmed with emotions that we completely forgot what Matt taught us about how to present a fish to the camera. Instead Im embarassed to say that I turned into mother hen ! My kids overheard me saying “my baby” and they claimed I held the trout like one. Lol. I got fish slime all over my hair. 

Why is this fish so special? After decades of #overfishing #dams and #waterdiversion the #lahontancutthroat nearly became extinct. Anglers from all over the world try to catch the record-sized ones. They used to be around 80 lbs but nowadays its around 40 lbs. The one we are holding is 10 lbs. 

All of Kyra and @eo_thesnowboarder efforts for the past several years (raising awareness among their peers that the Truckee River watershed begins with Lake Tahoe and ends at Pyramid Lake) have been about protecting this #trout. And it is only due to genius solutions by #summitlakepaiutetribe and #pyramidlakepaiutetribe who manage a #fishhatchery where the trout are spawned and raised until they are juvenile #lahontancutthroats and reintroduced to #pyramidlake.
After wrestling with a schedule I had in mind for After wrestling with a schedule I had in mind for this @writingdowntown #residency, I finally surrendered. Only then did I begin to manifest an #idea that I first tried in 2018. 

@elizabeth_gilbert_writer described ideas in #bigmagic  as “disembodied, energetic life-form. They are completely separate from us, but capable of interacting with us—albeit strangely. Ideas have no material body, but they do have consciousness, and they most certainly have will. Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest. And the only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner. It is only through a human’s efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether and into the realm of the actual.”

Ideas usually grow impatient and desert me while Im driving a kid to school or cooking. Even when I am writing, ideas dont like sticking around because I cant execute before somebody derails me. In this special space, I could finally catch and tame an idea.

As much as I love my family, I realize (in convincing them that I needed this residency) how important it is to fund programs like this. 

#lasvegas also offers plenty of experiences to catch #ideas :
-  @regalmovies #cinebarrepalacestation … had no idea that these #movietheaters existed. At first, we were quite confused. A theater without a concessions stand?  Who knew that you could only order food & drinks at your seat? Check out the #drunkenoreo (ole smoky cookies and cookies and cream liqueur, Stoli #vodka , #oreo cookies and vanilla ice cream)…and the sweet n chill pizza.
- @cirquedusoleil KÀ innovative #storytelling about two twins on a quest with fire that can unite or separate, destroy or illuminate.
- @chefroychoi #bestfriendsrestaurant …tell me if you like his kimchi carbonara or fried chicken
- @jabbawockeez dance crew never ceases to amaze me … pushing the limits of what humans can physically do
- @excaliburvegas #tournamentofkingslasvegas  wowed me w/pyrotechnics , sword fights and jousting.
Whats the first thing you would do? For a long ti Whats the first thing you would do?

For a long time, I have been stuck on the opening of my #memoir . I hung my #writersblock on grief, the loss of several of my mother’s siblings who took care of me after my mother died.  Thanks to @writingdowntown @plymptoninc @thewritersblocklv I was gifted 2-wks to face my demons.. Send me your muses and prayers !!

Heres what I am working on…

At twenty, I had white water rafted, spelunked, hiked, and ridden on horseback through nearly all the national parks in the United States when I lost both my mother and eighteen-year-old brother to the same disease. Known as the “silent killer,” #hepatitisb is an easily preventable disease commonly passed in #asians from mother to child during birth. Before she died, my mother asked my father to take me to the parks in Alaska and finish what we started. However, alienated by my father’s #chinese cultural beliefs to save face, move on, pretend nothing bad happened, I turned to the natural world and the indigenous people most intimate to these places for answers. Fireweed: A Memoir is a story about making sense of this world when you lose everything that made sense. It’s about finding a place or home to anchor yourself and your descendants to even if it doesn’t belong to you. It’s about resilience, finding some way, however messy, to deal with catastrophic events that advance and retreat or ebb and flow unpredictably through our lives. What matters is how we adapt.

Next door is the delightful @thewritersblocklv #bookstore . Owners Scott and Drew created an artificial #birdsanctuary and space for free creative writing classes for kids age 5-18.

Whats the first thing you did here? @fancifulnance ? @ok_bah_bye ? @joseph.v.lee ? @musicalmakiko @rche_types @liz.iversen
Stay tuned for scenes from a 2-week long @writingd Stay tuned for scenes from a 2-week long @writingdowntown #writingresidency hosted by @plymptoninc and @thewritersblocklv . This invitation could not have come at a better time. The kids just happened to have ski/skate wk and Thomas was able to request telework for the following week. At the same time 2025 began with an unexpected loss of a steady paycheck while my freelance work picked up and there was an urgency to wrapping up a memoir which had been sidelined by my commitments as wife and mother of four!! While my family is the source of my creativity and joy and happiness they too are very distracting to my #writingcareer .
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This was a great opportunity to also test the cleverly designed @peakdesign #travelbackpack in Coyote X-Pac® Ocean Edition VX-21 Fabric made of 100% fishing nets which comes in 2 sizes both of which are carryon-approved.

Items to pack for a #writersresidency :
-#postitnotes 
-#highlighters
-#pajamas 
-favorite books
-@lululemon underwear 
-#toothbrush
-meds
-#kindle (i did but forgot the micro-usb cable)
-keyboard and mouse and all the usb 3.0 and 3.1 C and usb 2,3,and 3.1 A and laptop chargers!

Gratitude to my family and supporters @writingdowntown @jenny8lee @plymptoninc @thewritersblocklv @electricliterature @apublicspace @grubstreet @wwborders @catapult catalyst@nevada_humanities @nypl @submittable @penamerica @goodsi.de @therubysf
10 years ago when I first postholed up the side of 10 years ago when I first postholed up the side of #snowboardcross race courses to film @ko.snowboarder and @eo_thesnowboarder navigating #rollers #wutangs and turns at speeds up to 65 mph, I thought … this has gotta be the worst sport for parents ?

Just as my toes and fingers froze standing for hours in blizzard conditions (on 2/7 it was 23 degrees, windy, 32 mph southwest with gusts as high as 55 mph) worried that every plume of powder was my kid crashing…I comforted myself with the thought that my kids will leave home one day with these mad skills. Thanks to their brilliant coaches @mortttyyy @nateholland @ridepage @axlsnows 

Here’s what Coach Mike called the #trickledown effect.” Each kid learns quicker and becomes more #resilient !

- Anything is possible so just go for it
- #dreambig
- #bekindtoyourself and your fellow competitors.
- Learn how to be a role model from your older siblings and be a role model for the younger siblings 
- Ride in blizzard or rain or white out conditions…no problrm

#resilience #sbxlife #boardercross #boardercross🏂 
#snowboardgirl #snowboardlife #snowboarding #snowboarding🏂 #snowboardingisfun #snowboardingisfun🏂 #outdoorwomen #sbxgirl #sbxgirls #bekindtoyourself💜 #bekindtoyourselfandothers
Day 3: #huntingtonbeach where you can #surfandski Day 3: #huntingtonbeach where you can #surfandski on the same day

Only @ko.snowboarder and her youngest sister (8 yo) dared to sign up for #surflessons in the winter. They were rewarded with private lessons with @rockymckinnon, a #professionalsurfer and #shaper and owner of @mckinnonsurfandsuplessons !  Rocky is not only known for the innovations he has made to adaptive surf but he embodies #livingyourpurpose and #doingwhatyoulove and #sharingwhatyoulove .
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We learned about how low tide causes faster and more powerful breaking waves and west southwest swells means we will drift towards the pier. I loved understanding how to read a wave’s shape, speed, and when it will break. Do waves transfer water or energy?
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#poolcabanas @waterfrontbeachresort can be reserved from 10am -7pm. It comes with a bonfire and butler service from @cabowabobeachclub . Highly recommend the #flanksteakfajitas but be sure to ask for extra tortillas. We also loved the butter poached #lobstertacos🌮 with onions and cilantro and the #tempurabatteredshrimp #tacos . 
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We squeezed in a #hottubsoak and #waterslideruns with a late checkout of 2pm. None of us wanted to leave.
Day 2: #huntingtonbeach Less than 100 feet from Day 2: #huntingtonbeach 

Less than 100 feet from #HuntingtonBeachPier, (site of the U.S. Open of Surfing), tucked inside this @hsssurf look for @javapointhb where you can grab acai bowls, donuts, bagels, avocado toasts, and a cup of coffee and wander around the nation’s first imprint collection of legendary surfers. See if you can find the first dog that was inducted in 2024. #sugarthesurfingdog was originally found as a stray, then turned into a rescue dog before becoming a 5 time World Champion, 5x HB Surf City Dog Champion. #surfershalloffame celebrated its first induction in 1997. 
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We started our day here and then met @yogawithchanda on the beach. The sound of her voice in harmony with the  break of waves upon the shore lulled my family into a rare hour of peace and quiet. I could hear my own thoughts for once. And dwell upon the idea Chanda  planted…that we should push ourselves towards discomfort until it feels comfortable. Avoiding things that make you uncomfortable prevents you from growing and exploring new opportunities. 

Interesting fact: Chanda started @yogaonthebeachhuntingtonbeach several years ago to meet people who love yoga. Now its grown into a donation based #yogaclasss offered several times a day! 
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For lunch, right next door to #javapointe we built our own #quesadillas and #tacos @primecutaqueria . Yum!

Then we rented three tandem #kayaks from @huntingtonharborboatrentals_ just when the sun came out. For Thomas and I it was a leisurely paddle but for @ko.snowboarder and @eo_thesnowboarder who paddled their younger sisters they not only got blisters but everyone got drenched!!
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The day ended with @beachbrossharing setting up the best #bonfire we have ever experienced on the #beach . Im not sure what I appreciated more? Not having to set up or take down any of the lounge chairs, giant connect 4, giant jenga, cornholes. The kids loved the giant marshmallows, specialty chocolates for #smores & lightup frisbee, and fire changing color packs.  Mostly we are grateful to Craig for going out of his way to find an allergy free chocolate bar for Riley. She said, it was the first time she ever had a smore w/chocolate! And that shes missed out.
@joliehuntingtonbeach #newrestaurant on the 2nd fl @joliehuntingtonbeach #newrestaurant on the 2nd floor with 180-degree  views of surfers catching a wave #huntingtonbeach 

1️⃣ Picanha: we fought over this dish…flat iron steak dressed in chimichurri, arugula salad and fries sauteed with chunks of garlic.

2️⃣ Braised Short Rib: garlic thyme mashed potatoes, asparagus and carrots.

3️⃣Maple Glazed Double Pork Chop: garlic thyme mashed potatoes, grilled onions and fried brussels sprouts (incredible taste and texture)!
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#happynewyear #surfcityusa #behere #VisitHB

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