Leslie McGuirk

Leslie McGuirk is an American astrologer, author and artist who has studied astrology for more than three decades. For much of that time it ran alongside a career in illustration and design: she has written and illustrated around twenty picture books for children, including If Rocks Could Sing, and created a line of products sold by the Japanese department store Takashimaya. Only later did she make chart reading the centre of her working life, and since 2000 she has given private readings and workshops for clients in many countries. Her book The Power of Mercury, published by HarperCollins in 2016, uses the planet's position in a chart as a guide to how each person thinks and communicates.

She approaches the birth chart as a pattern to be recognised rather than a forecast, and her teaching leans on metaphor, storytelling, music and humour to make a technical subject easy to grasp. Through her online Astrology Wisdom Academy she offers a beginners' foundation course, recorded classes on each of the planets and a short introduction to numerology. She also hosts the Wayfinder interview series on YouTube, gave a TEDxHollywood talk about creativity and rejection, and leads astrology weekends at Kripalu.