Leslie Lehr

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BIO

Leslie Lehr is a prize-winning author, screenwriter, and essayist who grew up in Ohio.

After graduating from USC's School of Cinematic Arts with a Student Emmy in hand, she spent several years in film production, rising to be the West Coast Production Manager of a commercial and music-video company, then went freelance to work on feature films. Once a mother, Lehr started writing seriously. Her humorous essays evolved into her first book, Welcome to Club Mom: The End of Life As You Know it - but the publisher changed the subtitle to The Adventure Begins. And it did.....

The what-ifs of modern motherhood drove Lehr to fiction soon after, and the result was her debut novel, 66 Laps, winner of the Pirates Alley Faulkner Society Gold Medal. Soon after, her screenplay, "Heartless," was produced as an independent film. The romantic thriller financed five other films for Santa Monica Pictures, aired on USA TV and has been screening in Europe for over six years. Her next books were the nonfiction tomes, The Happy Helpful Grandma Guide, excerpted on FisherPrice.com; and Wendy Bellissimo: Nesting, featured on "Oprah." Her novel, Wife Goes On, was the June selection for the Pulpwood Queens Book clubs, with 210 chapters of tiara-wearing, book-sharing readers.

Lehr & daughters at Barnes & Noble book signing

Lehr's essay in Mommy Wars, "I Hate Everybody" was lauded on the Today Show. "Parenting Paranoia" was excerpted in Arianna Huffington's bestseller, On Becoming Fearless. Her novel, Wife Goes On, was inspired by her essay, "Welcome to the Club" in the anthology, The Honeymoon's Over. Lehr is a contributor to the Tarcher/Penguin Series "Now Write."

Wife Truly Goes On

With a B.A. from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Lehr is a popular panelist at literary and film conferences around the country. She is a member of PEN, The Authors Guild, WGA, Women In Film, and The Women's Leadership Council of L.A. She teaches in the world-renowned Writer's Program at UCLA Extension.

Lehr has two daughters, Juliette and CJ, and recently married script consultant, John Truby. She lives in Southern California, where she continues to explore the dark and light sides of contemporary women.