Join Tamara for an interview with Jessica Leigh Lebos: Writer, Adopted Southerner, Anti-Socialite, Camellia Thief (and, as we decided during the interview, Public Menace).
She arrived in Savannah around 2005, and then spent years writing 3 columns a week during Jim Morekis's era of the Connect Savannah, where she was voted Best Newspaper Columnist. She's also a 2022 Winner in the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.
In 2018 she compiled her essays into a book called "Savannah Sideways." Since then, she publishes regularly to a Substack (which you can subscribe to), and has a second novel due to come out soon!
Read Jessica's work and follow her here:
https://jessicaleighlebos.substack.com/
https://www.instagram.com/savannahsideways/
https://www.amazon.com/Savannah-Sideways-Jessica-Leigh-Lebos/dp/0692950877 (But we encourage you to shop local ;) )
Topics in their chat include:
Spending her first Savannah year living on Tybee Island; her view that the writing is just the deliverable for the privilege of the research, thought, visits, and conversations she gets to do; how a Savannah River visit by Ralph Nader in the 70s eventually led to the Clean Water Act; her recommendations for for the best camellia viewing around town; will Jane Fishman's musical "Johnny Mercer and Me!" eventually make it to Broadway?; juggling other copywriting gigs, including for Savannah Bee Company; and can she be a cross between Carrie Bradshaw and the Joan Didion of Savannah?
Tune in and get all the details!