Leanne Prain

Leanne Prain helps communities and people connect through creative ideas.

She is the author of four books: The Creative Instigator’s Handbook: A DIY Guide to Making Social Change Through Art (2022), Strange Material: Storytelling Through Textiles (2014), Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti (2009 & 2019) co-authored with Mandy Moore; and Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery (2011), all published by Arsenal Pulp Press. She also writes for a variety of publications on craft and culture, such as Digits and Threads, Designer, Desktop, Works that Work, Applied Arts, Seamwork, and I was included in the anthology Craftivism.

Leanne has been called a Shameless Woman by Shameless magazine and a Lingo Maker of the Year by Mclean’s magazine. Her creative projects and books have been featured in major publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue Knitting, the BBC, Irish Public Radio, the Guardian UK, CBC, and the Globe and Mail. As an author, she enjoys delivering lectures and workshops of all kinds. She has toured across North America twice, talking in places such as The Smithsonian, Powell’s Books, Textile Arts in Brooklyn, the ICA Boston, and McNally Robinson Winnipeg.

When not writing, Leanne serves as the co-artistic director of The Imprint, a literary collective founded with poet Laura Farina to explore participatory acts of writing in public spaces.

Born in the Comox Valley, she lives in Vancouver, Canada, the unceded ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh.