Leslie Gentile's debut novel, Elvis, Me, and the Lemonade Stand Summer (2021), won the City of Victoria Children's Book Prize, the Jean Little First-Novel Award, and has been short-listed for nine other awards. Leslie is also a singer/songwriter and performs with two of her adult children in The Leslie Gentile Band. Of Settler and Indigenous heritage, she lives on Vancouver Island on the traditional territory of the W-SÁNEĆ people with her husband and a German shepherd who is convinced that he's a lapdog.