Summer News

May saw/heard the premiere of two new pieces setting my texts: Jessica Rudman’s “Hecate’s Tears” and Clifford W. King’s “Mother Winter, Give Me Your Hands.” Both were performed by the NEXT Ensemble of Salt Lake City. You can hear the latter here!

My work The Troy Game with composer Angela Elizabeth Slater premiered on June 23 at Bled Contemporary Music Week 2026 in Bled & Ljubljana, Slovenija. The live stream is here (temporarily). Scroll to about -24 minutes.

Over the July 4 weekend, I’ll be at NATS in San Antonio as I take on the role of the first Lyricist Mentor for the Mentoring Program for Composers, in which 10 composers work with mentor composers in creating new art song. Let me know if you’ll be there so we can meet up!

Opera Contempo will be presenting multiple performances of three scenes from THIS IS JANE at the Great Salt Lake Fringe festival in late July and early August. Tickets will be available here starting July 1.

Session 1 of Guerilla Opera’s Libretto Labs is halfway through, and Session 2 will begin on July 7! Applications for Guerilla Opera’s Writers’ Collective, a 9-month program for librettists and lyricists writing the text for an opera, musical, or song cycle, open July 1. You can learn more about the program here and even preview the draft syllabus here. There’s also a FAQ about the Collective here!

Summer Reads

Books out now that are perfect for a summer day and sweet iced tea:

Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama, a sweet and very pretty manga (and now anime).

Ruth Ozeki‘s The Typing Lady. I love Ozeki’s thoughtful and beautiful writing, and this is a lovely collection of stories and novellas.

If fantasy is your thing, do not miss A.G. Slatter’s
The Sourdough Compendium. This all-in-one volume of three collections of stories and novellas all set in the author’s Sourdough world is utterly delicious. I’m also shouting out Katherine Arden’s The Unicorn Hunters, a gorgeous tale spun in a world only slightly different from our own, and one in which Anne of Brittany must be a master of strategy to survive the machinations of her rivals.

Looking for non-fiction? Go get Gender Queer: The Annotated Edition by Maia Kobabe. This annotated version of their classic book on gender is superb, and even if you have a copy of the original, you’re going to want this one on your self too.

Finally, Carolyn Forché’s poetry collection Otherwhere is simply stunning.

For all my book reviews, visit https://kendraprestonleonard.hcommons.org/?s=reviews.

Happy Dogs

It’s been muddy here, and while Noodles doesn’t like the thunder, he loves puddles, and Wisp loves everything about the rain.

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