Leslie Schwartz is the author of two literary novels, Jumping the Green (Simon & Schuster, 1999) and Angels Crest (Doubleday, 2004.) Jumping the Green won the James Jones Literary Society Award for Best First Novel and was published in three languages.  Angels Crest was a Book Sense 76 pick and was published in nine languages. The film version of the book wrapped principal photography in December, 2009. The film title is Waska. In 2004 Schwartz was named Kalliope Magazine's Woman Writer of the Year.

For the last ten years, she has taught creative writing at UCLA Extension, the University of Iowa Summer Writers Festival and at prisons, low-income public high schools and gang intervention agencies. Most recently, she has been teaching creative writing at the nation's largest gang intervention agency, Homeboy Industries, where she also established and is now executive editor of the literary magazine Homeboy Review. The magazine was created to bridge the gap between mainstream, established writers and those who write from the margins and create a broad community of literature for all audiences.

Recently, she taught the National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read Initiative in the California Department of Corrections, a pilot program that brings the Big Read, normally geared for public schools and community organizations, into lock-up facilities. Awards include three artist-in-residence literary grants from the City of Los Angeles, and a literary grant from the California Council for the Humanities and PEN USA. She most recently won the West Hollywood/Algonquin Award for Public Service in the Arts and was the president of PEN USA in 2007.

Schwartz has been a frequent speaker at the annual Associated Writing Programs conferences, the Los Angeles Library ALOUD series and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. For five years, until 2007,  She wrote a twice-monthly column for the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses in New York City.