Lois Leveen

The Secrets of Mary Bowser, Civil War fiction and Historical nonfiction

Leveen's first novel was The Secrets of Mary Bowser (2012, William Morrow, ISBN 9780062107916), based on the life of Mary Bowser, "a Richmond slave who became a spy for the Union army." In August 2012, the novel was chosen as a Target club pick and named one of the Oregonian's "Top 10 Northwest Books of 2012."

Leveen also writes historical articles about the Civil War as a contributor to the New York Times Disunion blog, which tracks the causes of the Civil War. She has written about the life of Mary Bowser in "A Black Spy in the Confederate White House," as well as articles on the enslaved and free black community in Richmond, Virginia; on Joseph Reid Anderson, controversial owner of Tredegar Ironworks; and on Chimborazo, a large army hospital in Richmond.

Juliet's Nurse

Leveen's second novel Juliet's Nurse (2014, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 9781476757445) reimagines the story of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet from the point of view of the nurse. Prior to the book's publication, Leveen gave talks at conferences around the world about how her studies of fourteenth-century Italian history shaped the novel. As part of her research for this project, Leveen developed an interest in apiculture and worked with the City of Portland to ease regulations for local beekeepers.

Creative Nonfiction

Her essay "The Ice Age", about her father's mid-life crisis as a figure skater appeared in The Oregon Literary Review in 2008.

Her Christmas-themed piece "Gay Apparel" was featured in the 2010 Lambda Literary Award winning anthology Portland Queer

In 2008, her short story describing her experiences with and love for the sidewalk "Free Box" was published in an anthology called, Our Portland Story, a book about Portland, Oregon by Portlanders.

Critical Essays

In 2008 her piece critical of the television character Dora the Explorer appeared in Bitch Magazine

In 2003, her essay "Pitiful strategies : Richard Delgado's legal storytelling and the politics of racial representation" appeared in CrossRoutes, the meanings of "race" for the 21st century, an international collection of critical race theory.

Poetry

Her poem "Welcome water" is inscribed on the wall of a hospital in Oregon.

Her poem "Cognative Dissonance" was featured in the Jewish feminist journal Bridges in 2009

Her poem "Walloon at Walgreens" appeared in Monkey Puzzle # 8 in 2009

Columns

Leveen is Jewish. She published several articles for the Daily Forward in June 2012.[[File:]] Since 2008 she has been an ethics columnist ("The Shmeticist") for The Jew and the Carrot, a Jewish food blog. She has also written for Interfaith Family and she has spoken at the Oregon Jewish Museum.

Teaching

The non-profit organization Literary Arts has run "Delve Readers' Seminars" since 2005. Lois Leveen has led several of these:

2012:

2011:

2010:

2009:

2008:

2007:

2006:

She previously taught at Reed College and UCLA

Radio

Lois Leveen read her personal essay on pseudo-death and rising long-distance rates on episode 68 of the NPR variety show Live Wire in June 2008.

Television: Mission Hill

Lois was the inspiration and model for the character of Natalie Leibowitz-Hernandez on the Adult Swim cartoon Mission Hill, which was created by three of her long-time friends. She auditioned for the voice of her own character, but actress Vicki Lewis was determined to be even more “Lois-y” than Lois Leveen herself, and she was cast in the role instead.

Multimedia

Since 2007 Leveen and her partner have created five videos, including Four Act Foreman with characters drawn from their idiosyncratic selection of objects as part of Performance Works NorthWest's annual Richard Foreman Mini-Festival. Lois served on the Board of Portland's Performance Works NorthWest from 2006 to 2010.

She also served as academic advisor for two multimedia series America's History in the Making and Artifacts and Fiction, produced by Annenberg/CPB.

Music

After an encounter with Bay Area accordion and pyrotechnic maestro Kimrick Smythe, Lois embraced the accordion fully. Her increasing proficiency and resurrection of Christmas carols and Yiddish standards became a staple of the annual San Francisco Lingerie Thanksgiving. She plays accordion in The Stumptown Family Ramblers, a band created by Sarah Dougher.