Speaker's Book Sparks

Controversy, Anger

Leslea Newman is no stranger to controversy, in fact, the very titles of some of her books seemed tailormade to stir up heated debates: "The Little Butch Book," "Pillow Talk - Lesbian Stories Between the Covers" and "Out of the Closet and Nothing to Wear," for example.

Newman's writing career started with a children's book "Heather has Two Mommies," which is a short story about a 3-year-old girl with lesbian parents that has since sold 35,000 copies. At 36 pages, it is an easy read and is written for children ages 4 to 8. However, this book has been named one of the most controversial books of the 1990s and made Newman, author of more than 30 books, one of the " most dangerous woman" in America, a title she used to introduce herself to the 100 member audience in her speech Saturday.

Before starting her speech, Newman presented several slides of Matthew Shepard and asked the audience to observe a moment of silence for him. Shepard was a gay student from the University of Wyoming who as killed in October 1998. The mention of Shepard foreboded the topics she would later present - the prejudice and social difficulties faced by gays and lesbians in America.

After finishing her first book, Newman went to as many as 50 publishers, all of whom rejected her book. Undaunted, Newman raised $4000 with the help of family and friends and self published "Heather has Two Mommies" in December 1989, launching a decade of controversial writing, she said.

"I didn't write a controversial book, I wrote a book that became controversial," Newman said. "There's a difference."

Newman said her book was often criticized by others who merely wanted to achieve their own political agendas. 

After a year in publication, "Heather Has Two Mommies" gained international fame when it was mentioned in a Newsweek article. By the mid 1990s, there was a "concerted effort" to ban children from reading the book, she said.

"We started getting calls from librarians saying, "We respect the First Amendment and we don't want to remove your books, but we are getting calls from the community," Newman said. "They were getting death threats and bomb threats to the library, which had to be taken seriously."