About
I am Leslie Anne Bustard. The creation of this website starts with my delight in words—especially found in Scripture, books, and poetry—and my love for beauty found in the ordinary and in nature. Wandering through museums and discovering new paintings and painters has been a hobby of mine since I was a teenager. Although I’ve spent my most of my adult years, homeschooling, teaching in the classroom, and producing high school and children’s theater, recently I’ve been writing essays and poetry. I love my family, friends, church, and neighborhood, as well as baking, reading, walking, and taking photographs.
I”m excited about the publication of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children coming out April 2022.
Bright as Yellow, the Innocence Mission classic, is a very favorite song.
“And you live your life with your arms stretched out
Eye to eye when speaking
Enter rooms with great joy shouts
Happy to be meeting
And bright, bright, bright, bright as yellow
Warm as yellow”
Another place to learn about me is my Caring Bridge. A part of my story includes learning that Jesus is a good Shepherd—he has been with me these past two years as I have walked, and continue to walk, through the valley of the shadow of death. Stage 4 Melanoma and Stage 2 Breast Cancer, along with all the crazy hard side effects of the meds, defined much of this time for me and my family. Through the continuing prayers and kind help of our family and friends, near and far, God has been faithful and sustained me and Ned and our girls. I started sharing my journey in January 2020 on Caring Bridge.
The painting above could be titled Cape May, 1990. My Aunt Hazel saw the original photograph of me (and the one of Ned) on the beach during our honeymoon. She had someone paint portraits of us based on these happy photos; these paintings have hung in every home we have made since out first year of marriage. It really captures how glad we were that week, and also my life long happiness of being at the beach. We still have the gray sweatshirt we bought that week…