LEON SOFIE VERRAEST (they/them) writes and performs in Dutch and English. Their prose, poetry, and nonfiction are published in journals such as Deus Ex Machina, Failbetter Journal, Fiction Writers Review, Green Mountains Review, Flemish Review de la Poëzie and Poëziekrant. Leon received a talent development grant from Flanders Literature and was a resident and fellow of the English National Centre for Writing, Akademie Schloss Solitude, and the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation for Creative Writing, among others. They made the shortlist of the Iowa International Writing Program, were one of Ninth Letter's "New Voices in International Writing," and won the Belgian writing competitions VLOED (2023) and DEMarrage (2022). They are a founding member of the Belgian Hyster-X collective. They live in Brussels and learn from their students of contemporary literature, creative writing & sociology of architecture at Ghent University and the KASK School of Arts. They are currently finishing their debut novel, a coming-of-age story of a West-Flemish girl growing up in a housing estate in the 1990s and early 2000s, exploring how you find your own voice and language after coming from the silence of a working class background.