Lesley Adele Hazleton was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Reading, Berkshire, England, in 1945.
[1] Hazleton described herself as "a Jew who once seriously considered becoming a rabbi, a former convent schoolgirl who daydreamed about being a nun, an agnostic with a deep sense of religious mystery though no affinity for organized religion".
[5] In April 2010, she launched The Accidental Theologist,[6] a blog casting "an agnostic eye on religion, politics, and existence.
"[7] In September 2011, she received The Stranger's Genius Award in Literature [8] and in fall 2012, she was the Inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at Town Hall Seattle.
[1][10][11] It was praised by The New York Times as "vital and mischievous" and as "wide-ranging... yet intimately grounded in our human, day-to-day life.