I’m Dan Leonard.

I came to writing later in life, after spending a long time paying attention in other ways.

These days, I write picture books, essays, and the occasional idea that hasn’t quite decided what it wants to become.

Most of my stories begin with something small—a sound, a name, a root, a shortcut, a question, a child noticing something the adults have stopped noticing.

Then I follow it.

I’m interested in the moment when an ordinary thing becomes a little less ordinary. When a problem changes because someone tries to solve it. When something we thought we understood turns out to look different from another point of view.

That curiosity runs through most of what you’ll find here.

Some of the writing is funny. Some is quiet. Some wanders into history, memory, nature, or the strange ways people make sense of the world.

I live near the coast in North Carolina, where I walk a lot, watch the weather, listen to birds, and have discovered that looking closely at almost anything usually leads somewhere unexpected.

I’m a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

The Turning Quiet is where I gather the things I’m working on and the things I’m still wondering about.

There’s no particular order.

Start wherever something catches your eye.