Leah Scheier

Leah decided she wanted to be a writer around the same time that she learned to read. From an early age she filled notebooks with her thoughts and observations, convinced that one day these scribblings would be unearthed and hailed by literature critics as the beginnings of a great career. She has since carefully hidden away those notebooks. Which is just as well– because the contents of those journals are embarrassing for many, many reasons. Sometime during high school, wise adults convinced her that writing was not the smartest career choice, unless she wished to spend her life unemployed and hungry, waiting sadly by her mailbox for the publisher’s letter which would never come. So she chose pediatrics. She figured that if she couldn’t make children smile with her writing, at least she could make their fevers go away and their noses stop running. But as fate would have it: their noses never seemed to stop running. As soon as one little person dried up, another one began dripping, a growing line of stuffed-up toddlers beating at her door, their little voices overwhelming her. So in the evenings after office hours were over and her own children were in bed, she took up writing again. She worked on Secret Letters for a year and a half, and when it was finally done she wrapped it up and lovingly stowed it under her bed– which is where it would have stayed, if her husband hadn’t fished it out and encouraged her to at least “give it a try.” Two months later she had an agent, the amazing Irene Kraas, who sent the manuscript to Hyperion, where their talented editors, Lisa and Catherine, went to work— and with their help her first novel was finally ready to be published. While waiting for her book to come out (June 26th, people!) Leah continues to lead a shady double life: smiling pediatrician by day, feverish writer by night. She lives with her husband and three daughters in Modi’in, and in her free time enjoys horse-back riding, watching movies, playing the violin, and visiting with family and friends in Atlanta and Baltimore.