Leslie, Kenneth

Born in Pictou, Nova Scotia in 1892, Kenneth Leslie was an author, journalist, poet, and political activist. He attended Dalhousie University for his B.A., and the University of Nebraska for his M.A. He also studied at Harvard. He was a political activist in the 1930s and 40s, establishing an anti-Fascist journal called the Protestant Digest (later called The Protestant). He also circulated a comic book, called The Challenger, that challenged Fascism. From 1934 onward, he published poetry collections such as Windward Rock, Lowland's Low, Such a Din!, and By Stubborn Stars and Other Poems, for which he received the Governor-General's Award in 1938. The Protestant was discontinued in 1953, but Leslie continued to publish periodicals, such as One, New Christian, Man, and New Man.

Leslie's first wife was Elizabeth Moir, with whom he had four children. He and his family travelled to Paris before settling in New York City in the late 1920s. After he and Moir divorced, he married Marjorie Finley Hewitt in 1934. Leslie and Hewitt were married for twelve years, when Hewitt filed for divorce c. 1946. Leslie then married his secretary, Cathy, who eventually left him for his nephew, a man closer to her own age. In 1960, Leslie suffered a stroke. Despite this, he drove to California to comfort the widow of an old friend, Nora Steenerson Totten. He and Totten married soon after, and lived the rest of their lives together. Leslie passed away in 1974.