Lesléa Newman

Lesléa Newman has written and edited 70 books and anthologies. She has written about such topics as being a Jew, body image and eating disorders, lesbianism, lesbian and 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.[2] She was later the subject of another similar controversy in 1997, when her book Belinda's Bouquet was banned by School District 36 Surrey in Surrey, British Columbia, alongside Johnny Valentine's One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads and Rosamund Elwin and Michele Paulse's Asha's Mums.[3] That ban was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada in its 2002 decision Chamberlain v Surrey School District No 36.[4]

She also authored The Boy Who Cried Fabulous and Hachiko Waits in 2004.

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. Her set of children's picture books Mommy, Mama, and Me and Daddy, Papa and Me were 2010 Stonewall Honor Books as well as her 2013 October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepherd.[5] In 2019, she received a National Jewish Book Award for Gittel’s Journey: An Ellis Island Story.[6]

She was the inaugural judge of the Naugatuck River Review Narrative Poetry Prize.

Newman is a lesbian.[7]

• Fat Chance
• LGBT culture in New York City
• List of self-identified LGBTQ New Yorkers

• Newman, Lesléa (Fall 2015). "Always a Crossword Between Us\". Lilith Magazine.
• Day, Frances Ann (2000). Lesbian and Gay Voices: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to Literature for Children and Young Adults. Greenwood Press. pp. 188–190. ISBN 0-313-31162-5.

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