Leslie Schwartz

She has published two novels, Jumping the Green and Angels Crest, the latter of which was made into a 2011 film, and The Lost Chapters, a memoir of her time in jail while recovering from alcoholism.

[8][9][10] She served as president of the board of directors of PEN Center USA, the Los Angeles literary and human rights organization, from 2006-2007.

[11] In 2006, as part of PEN, Schwartz was hired through a grant by the California Council for the Humanities to teach a 10-week creative writing class for former Los Angeles gang members at Homeboy Industries, an intervention program founded by Father Gregory Boyle.

[17][18][19][20][21][22] Angels Crest (Doubleday, ISBN 978-0-385-51185-8) is a 2004 novel about a toddler wandering off in the snowy California mountains, and the aftermath in a small town where nearly everyone has a personal connection to the tragedy.

[23][24] The book was made into a 2011 Canadian-American film of the same title, directed by Gaby Dellal and starring Thomas Dekker, Lynn Collins, and Mira Sorvino.

[25] In 2018, Schwartz published her memoir The Lost Chapters: Reclaiming My Life, One Book at a Time (Blue Rider Press, ISBN 978-0525534631) about her 2014 sentence in the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, California.