Leslea Newman Interview
- By Carrie Brodi
Two years later, with a growing awareness of her lesbian identity, Newman expanded her poetry to prose and moved to Northampton, Massachusetts. "There certainly had been stirrings before hand but living in a community where the lesbian community was such a strong presence, really just made it easier for me. I never felt like I fit in but I didn't know why. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me or I was picking the wrong people. I didn't think I was picking the wrong gender" Although Newman's family supported her coming out, she realizes others have not been so lucky. Her fiction is rife with voices of disappointed parents abandoning their gay children. "I just find it so incredibly sad that a parent's heart can't open to encompass the experience of their child. It's a great loss for both the parent and the child. There are a lot of people from various cultures that have had incredible struggles with their parents to accept them. I only know my own experience, which is very specific and rooted in Judaism, but certainly we don't corner the market on rejecting our children." Alternate to the perspectives of the gay child is the perspective of the child of gay parents. Newman is best known for writing Heather Has Two Mommies, a 26-page narrative told through the voice of an eight year old girl who has two mothers. It was written to fill a void in the children's book market and to provide an alternate paradigm to the heterosexual, nuclear family. Since it's grassroots, homespun publication in 1989, (publishers wouldn't touch it), Heather Has Two Mommies has become the second most banned book in America, an accomplishment the writer facetiously dubs a compliment. "I was really quite amazed at what a book can do, but what people forget is that it was a children's book. From what I could see, the fear was- if my child reads this book, they are going to grow up to be gay. I always tell people that as a child, I read thousands of books about straight people and none of them really changed me in that way." Newman laughs. "You have to backtrack and say, would you rather have a happy gay child or a suicidal child who's trying to be straight?"
 | | ABOUT CARRIE
My name is Carrie Brodi. I'm a woman with a list--a list of people I want to interview before I kick off. Names include Sarah Schulman, Fran Lebowitz, Natalie Merchant and Woody Allen. I study Journalism and Jazz guitar in Toronto. Contact: coolgrrrrl1@yahoo.com. |
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