Lesléa
Newman is an American author and editor. She is Jewish, a feminist and
openly lesbian. She has written and edited 57 books and anthologies. She
has written about such topics as being a Jew, body image and eating
disorders, lesbianism, gay parenting, and her gender role as a femme.
Her best-known work is the controversial Heather Has Two Mommies. In
1990, many gay and lesbian couples and their children found the first
reflections of their families in this picture book.

This
is the forty-eighth post in a series highlighting the best gay and
lesbian authors from the 20th century (with a few before and after that
period) who have recorded in fiction, and nonfiction, the history of gay
people telling what life is, and was, during an important time of
history.

Her
literary awards include Creative Writing Fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, the
James Baldwin award for Cultural Achievement, the Dog Writers
Association of America's Best Book of Fiction Award, and a Parents'
Choice Silver Medal. Nine of her books have been Lambda Literary Award
finalists. In 2009 she received the Alice B. Award.

 Much
of Lesléa Newman's writing career has been devoted to exploring the
many different identities that live within each individual and the
various ways those identities interact and express themselves. As a
Jewish femme lesbian-feminist writer of poetry, fiction, and children's
books, Newman draws on her own experience to describe the complex
tapestry that results when a variety of identities are woven together.

Born
on November 5, 1955, Newman grew up in a middle-class family in the
Brooklyn neighborhood of Brighton Beach. She and her two brothers were
raised not only by their parents, but also by their maternal grandmother
who lived across the street. Her outspoken, feisty bubbe (Yiddish for
grandmother) would become a major influence and role model for young
Lesléa, and would turn up in many of her novels and children's stories,
including Remember That (1996), Matzo Ball Moon (1998), and In Every
Laugh a Tear (1998).

Newman began writing poetry by the age of
eight, but she did not turn her hand to fiction until she was
twenty-seven, the same year she came out as a lesbian. In 1982 she moved
from New York City to the East coast lesbian mecca of Northampton,
Massachusetts. There she soon discovered her own lesbian identity. By
the mid-1980s she was writing poetry and novels, many about the Jewish
dyke experience.

In 1989, Newman
was impelled to write her first children's book when a lesbian friend
complained that there were no books where her child could read about her
own experience as the daughter of a lesbian. She asked Newman to
rectify this, and the result was Heather Has Two Mommies, a
straightforward story of a little girl who has "two arms, two hands, two
legs, two eyes, two ears, two hands and two feet," and two lesbian
mommies.

First published by a small
press Newman and a friend founded to issue it because no established
publisher would touch the theme, Heather soon became one of the most
controversial books in the country, outraging right wing conservatives.
By 1994 it had become the second most banned book in the United States.

Newman
went on to write a number of other children's books, exploring topics
from fat oppression (Belinda's Bouquet, 1991) and gay families (Gloria
Goes to Gay Pride, 1991) to Jewish culture (Matzo Ball Moon) and pets
(Cats, Cats, Cats!, 2001). She has also written books on sensitive
issues for young adults, such as Fat Chance (1994), about eating
disorders, and Jail Bait (2005), which tackles sexual abuse.

In
one of her best-known pieces, "A Letter to Harvey Milk" (1987), Newman
ties Jewish history and oppression to the struggle for gay liberation
through a rambling letter written to the slain San Francisco politician
by an older straight Jewish man. The older man's grudging respect for
Milk's work and grief over his murder touched a deep chord with readers,
and the story has been adapted as both a stage play and a film.

In
addition to publishing her own writing, Newman has also worked to
encourage and help other women explore the written word. As part of this
effort, she has published Write from the Heart: Inspiration and
Exercises for Women Who Want to Write (1993, rev. ed. 2003), and she
also offers Write From the Heart writing workshops for women.
Tina Gianoulis