Leonora Langley has divided her professional life between education and journalism, beginning as a teacher in Brighton in the 1970s. In the 1980s she became increasingly active as a journalist and in 1984 she moved to the USA, where she created and for four years edited a lifestyle magazine for The Hollywood Reporter. From 1988 she was the first west-coast editor of the US edition of Elle magazine. Returning to the UK in the early 1990s, she has since taught English, Drama and Music in some of the most challenging Brighton schools, in the process liaising with world-class organisations such as Glyndebourne Opera.