Leslie Morgan Steiner

Leslie Morgan Steiner is the author of Crazy Love, a memoir in which she reveals how she fell in love with and married a man who beat her regularly and nearly killed her. From her March 2009 interview with TIME:

Why did you choose to reveal your secret now?

Similar to Mommy Wars, this memoir allowed me to dig deeply into a very personal issue. It allowed me to answer a series of why's and find out things for myself. Honestly, I really wanted to understand why I had been vulnerable to a man like my first husband and why I had ignored so many red flags. It's an incredible thing to take something bad that happened to you and turn it into something good. Writing Crazy Love was that for me.

You mentioned that sharing this story is either one of the stupidest or bravest things you've ever done. Which is it? And why the vacillation?

Well, Both. Stupid because of how vulnerable sharing this story makes me feel. Stupid because I worked so hard to put this behind me. Stupid because it is painful and upsetting to talk about this period in my life. Why bring such a dark period into my wonderful, happy present day life? And brave because it is hard and painful for anyone to talk honestly about a terrible relationship.

Read the complete Q & A.

Visit Leslie Morgan Steiner's website.

Writers Read: Leslie Morgan Steiner.

--Marshal Zeringue