Welcome to my website.

I am known by two names, Libi and Ona. Currently, as Libi Siporin, I am writing a series of mysteries set in the countryside and forests of a small Tuscan town, published by the fine folks at Level Best Books.

Featuring feisty outdoors woman and freelance writer Leah Contarini, an American whose initial months in an Italian village turn into years of friendships, adventure – and encounters with the dark underbelly of normalcy. Parallel to the excitement of her new life, Leah inadvertently witnesses murder, flees killers, worries for her daughter, suffers the loss of her husband, survives close calls on her life, and forges ahead to experience great joys.

A Goodreads reviewer of the Leah Contarini Mystery Series writes:

I am glad to report that I was quite stunned to learn the identity of the murderer. The descriptions of the landscape were mesmerizing to me. Murder is a fairly wild action (as in wild animal) so the murders taking place in the great outdoors were scary and reminiscent of mythology–almost with a dancing quality. Your array of local characters was great! My favorite was the cop.

As Ona Siporin, I’m the author of two chapbooks of poetry (Poems for a Primitive Mythology and Girl on a White Gate), one work of history and fiction (Uncommon Common Women: Ordinary Lives of the West, coauthored with historian Dr. Anne M. Butler), and one book of essays (Stories to Gather All Those Lost). My poems, short fiction, essays, and articles, published in various journals and magazines are a look at the meanderings of a woman often perplexed, but mostly awed, by living. I’m thankful to the Celia B. Wagner Award in Poetry; the Albert J. Colton Fellowship for international research; the Idaho Commission on the Arts; and Utah State University’s Mountain West Center and Women and Gender Research Institute for supporting my work; and to Sundance Institute Playwrights Lab, WordBridge Playwrights Lab, Utah Performing Arts Tour and the Utah Arts Council Artists Roster for inviting me to join with them in the hard work and joy of creative endeavor.