Lesléa Newman [lɛzˈ liˌə] (born November 5, 1955, in Brooklyn, New York City[1]) is an American author, editor, and feminist best known for the children's book Heather Has Two Mommies.

[2] She started writing poems when she was 8 to cope with her sadness over her family moving from Brooklyn to Long Island.

[3] Newman began writing more seriously as a teenager by participating in poetry contests sponsored by Seventeen magazine.

Upon moving out, she had very little contact with them for decades, in part because of their "loud and clear" expectation for her to have a traditional heterosexual marriage.

Shortly before dying, her mother gave her permission to write about the experience on the condition that "I'll never have to read it."

[7] Newman lives in Holyoke, Massachusetts with her wife, "a Puerto Rican ex-nun,"[8] and their cat.

Newman came out as a lesbian in the early 1980s and married her wife, Mary Vazquez, in a "commitzvah" ceremony in 1989, before gay marriage was legally recognized.

[13] She was repeatedly advised to publish the book under a pen name in anticipation of the backlash, but declined.

[14] That ban was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada in its 2002 decision Chamberlain v Surrey School District No 36.

In 1998, Newman was invited to be the keynote speaker for the University of Wyoming's Gay Awareness Week.

Two days before she was scheduled to speak, the president of the LGBT Student Organization called to tell her that fellow member Matthew Shepard had been attacked and was not found for 18 hours, at which point he was in a coma.

[17] Newman was deeply affected by his death and continues to open all lectures on LGBT rights within a dedication to him.

She heard lots of Yinglish growing up in Brooklyn, particularly from her grandmothers, and says that she does her most authentic writing when she incorporates it.

[7] Heather Has Two Mommies, originally published in 1989 by Alyson Books and illustrated by Diana Souza, is about a young girl who has lesbian mothers.

[20] In 1990, many gay and lesbian couples and their children found the first reflections of their families in this picture book.

[28] In 2019, she received a National Jewish Book Award for Gittel's Journey: An Ellis Island Story.