Leah

Leah Bristol
Portrayed By	Katie Melua
Gender	Female
Date of Birth	August 13, 1981
Age	26
Zodiac Sign	Leo
Aliases
Place of Birth	Queens, NY, USA
Current Location	New York City, NY, USA
Occupation	Writer
Known Relatives	Karen Bristol (mother), Paul Bristol (father), Ethan Bristol (brother), Rochelle Knight (cousin)
Significant Other	None
Known Abilities	None
First Appearance	Stupid and Wonderful Werewolves

Born and raised in Queens, Leah Bristol still lives there. She makes frequent trips to Manhattan where she works retail part time in between writing a series of moderately sucessful books about werewolves. A real geek or lover of this sort of book may recognize her name, but it's not a familiar one to the general public.

History

I was born here in Queens, and I've lived here my whole life. There's not a whole lot exciting about my family. My father is a general contractor, and my mother is a nurse. For some reason, fate decided to curse me with an older brother. All those rumors about me wanting to follow him around everywhere as a kid cannot be true, even if Mom has pictures. I started ballet before I started elementary school, and I kept up taking classes until I was in High School. I was good but not good enough to make a career of it. I still keep up some of the exercises and the like that I learned there. They're good for staying in shape.

Sometimes people ask me when I became a writer. The answer really is second grade. My mother gave me a notebook in my stocking at Christmas that year, telling me I could write about whatever I wanted. Soon I had notebooks stashed everywhere full of stories about kitties, puppies, and fairies. I was always a girly girly, and my writing reflected that. Over the years it became more focused on the lives of fashionista teenagers, though they likely had kitties, puppies, or maybe even fairies. Writing was my release throughout my childhood. I had lots of friends, but this was something that didn't depend on our parents saying they could come over to play.

When I graduated high school, I didn't go far to start college. In fact, I lived at home throughout those four years. I was accepted at Queens College. I majored in English, as well as minoring in Irish Studies, mostly because it sounded like fun. I met Mahlia in one of my boring gen ed classes. We were partnered for a presentation, and our friendship just took off. She convinced me to join intramural teams, where I must have been an amusement to the other players. Hey, I can break a few nails for the cause as well as anyone else. We went out together on weekends and stayed up late talking on the phone about vitally important topics like boys. After we both graduated, we moved in together as roommates. It was nice finally being out of our parents houses.

I did what seemed normal for someone with an English degree, I found a job that was totally unrelated. Actually, I worked retail, selling clothes at a store in Manhattan. It paid the bills, and well, I like clothes, so it worked out. In my spare time, I wrote. And I wrote. One night when Mahlia's mother was over to make sure we were still alive, I'd left my laptop, open to the book I was working on, sitting on the kitchen table while I proved that I had passable culinary skills in the kitchen. Her mom was reading it when I came out. That night was my biggest point of luck. Turns out, her mother is an editor for a publishing house. She liked what she was reading and hooked me up with an agent there. After /a lot/ of editing and revising, my first book came out on the market. Moonlight, it was called. I won't say that it became a bestseller, but it did alright. It's still out in stores, shelved in scifi or horror or wherever they're putting books about werewolves these days. Last I heard they were making up some category called Urban Fantasy for it. Not that you'll see them shelved under that in a store. My second book came out just a few months ago, Silverstream. Right now, I'm working on the third and contracted for a fourth as well. Life is good, I've even been able to cut back to working just a few days a week selling clothes so I have more time to write.

In the last couple of years, I've also had the ability to get to know my cousin Rochelle better. Since she moved to the city we've seen a lot more of her than occasional visits home to boring family reunions and things. Someone practical might say that we're related because my mother is Rochelle's father's sister. Frankly, though, I've never been able to figure out how I could possibly be related to her. It's not that we fight or anything, it's just, well, we're so very different in appearance and personality. I'm not sure she even knows the meaning of the word manicure. Seriously.

Quotes

• "Memorable quotes!"

Trivia

• According to Rochelle, it is a very bad idea to give the energetic Leah sugar.
• Leah's favorite color is purple.