C. P. Lesley is a pseudonym, based on my initials and my original middle name (hence Lesley, not Leslie).

Why use a pseudonym? Not to conceal my identity—a waste of time in the age of the Internet. Nor to spare my family, which has been wonderfully supportive of my need to hang out with imaginary people. But you didn’t really want to read a bunch of articles on manuscript history, did you?

Didn’t think so. You may enjoy my translation:  The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible. Lots of fun details on how people lived, or more likely how one writer thought they should live, in sixteenth-century Moscow—although I don't suggest applying Domostroi’s rules to anyone you know. Assuming you want to stay out of jail, that is.

Like my heroine Sara Pennington, I am a historian of 16th-century Russia. I live in suburban Philadelphia with my husband and two Siamese cats.

When not thinking up new ways to torture my characters, I edit other people’s manuscripts, read voraciously, maintain this Web site, and take classes in classical ballet.