Leigh Toner
Vice President
Originally from Columbia, South Carolina, Leigh Toner joined the SAL Board in the fall of 2020. Bryan Stevenson is included among her favorite SAL events, of which she says, “I brought my husband to this event as a date night. He isn’t a big fiction reader, so I am selective with my SAL invitations. It was the right connection at the right time for him. He read Just Mercy, he gave it to other people, he went to Montgomery, and then took his executive leadership team there for an offsite. I think Malcolm Gladwell would call it a tipping point in my husband’s personal journey.” As a child, her favorite read was Little Women because she wanted to be Jo—not just as a writer, but also because she was intellectual and independent, and because Leigh spent a lot of time writing plays and stories with friends. (She was also a fan of Alcott’s Little Men and An Old-Fashioned Girl.) Leigh’s idea of an ideal Sunday is reading the New York Times and the Seattle Times (paper editions!) with lots of coffee and no guilt. On her desk, you’ll find a hand painted tile place card from a dinner in Lisbon 20 years ago; a jelly jar of pens and pencils; a monogramed letter opener; several notebooks and lots of notes.