With motherhood comes one of the toughest decisions of a woman’s life: stay at home or pursue a career? Wharton MBA graduate Leslie Morgan Steiner has been there. As an executive at the Washington Post, Johnson & Johnson, Leo Burnett -- and a mother of three -- she lived and breathed every side of the “mommy wars” and decided to do something about it. She commissioned 26 outspoken mothers to write about their lives, their families, and the choices that have worked for them. The result is Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families (Random House March 2006) a frank, surprising, and utterly refreshing look at American motherhood.

After graduating from Wharton in 1992 with an MBA in Marketing, Leslie Morgan Steiner launched Splenda Brand Sweetener throughout Australia, the Mid-East and Latin America for Johnson & Johnson. She managed U.S. public relations supporting 1998 FDA approval of Splenda, which is now the #1 low-calorie sweetener in the United States.

She returned to her hometown of Washington, DC in 2001 to become General Manager of the 1.1 million-circulation Washington Post Magazine. Her accomplishments at The Washington Post include turning around the Sunday magazine into a profitable venture for the first time in its 17 year history; serving as advertising team lead on the 2003 launch of Express, The Washington Post’s free 175,000-circulation newspaper targeted to nontraditional readers outside the flagship paper’s demographic base; and the 2004 launch of Washington Post At Home, a luxury home and design magazine. She writes a popular on-line column about working motherhood for The Washington Post, “On Balance” (www.washingtonpost.com/onbalance).

Steiner holds a BA in English from Harvard College. Her first job was as an editor at Seventeen Magazine; she financed her Wharton degree by writing for Seventeen, Mademoiselle, New England Monthly and Money Magazine. In addition to writing for The Washington Post, she is a contributor to Ariana Huffington’s On Becoming Fearless and Anne Burt’s Your Father Married My Mother. She is a member of Advertising Women of New York (AWNY), a trustee of the board for The Maret School, a member of the Wharton Alumni Association Board, and a former spokeswoman for The Harriet Tubman Center in Minneapolis, the country’s oldest shelter for abused women and children. She lives with her husband and three children in Washington, DC.

www.mommywars.net
www.washingtonpost.com/onbalance


Praise for Mommy Wars

"A smart, balanced view of this hot-button topic."
--Child Magazine

“Ambition and attachment do battle in [this] book of fiercely honest essays…that has the ring of truce.”
--O, The Oprah Magazine

“Steiner offers a valuable opportunity for discussing women’s ‘inner catfight.’ In lieu of mud-sling, she presents a reasonable, low-key forum for mutual understanding and respect.”
-- Publishers Weekly

“Ever wondered why women waste so much energy judging other women? Here is a collection of terrific essays, full of distilled female wisdom, that tell it like it is. I can’t think of a mother who wouldn’t enjoy this book.”
-- Allison Pearson, I Don't Know How She Does It

“Mommy Wars is a riveting page turner that brings into sharp focus the issues which tear apart all mothers today. If you read any new book this season, let it be Mommy Wars.”
--Esther Wachs Book, Why the Best Man for the Job is a Woman

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