Leslie K. Barry

Amazon best selling author, Leslie K. Barry is most recently a screenwriter, author, and executive producer. Her previous professional work includes executive positions with major entertainment companies including Turner Broadcasting, Hasbro/Parker Brothers, Mattel, and Mindscape Video Games. Other areas of business include executive for the first e-shopping platform called eShop and marketing for Lotus Development, the US Post Office, and AOL. She was an Alpha Sigma Tau at JMU (James Madison University) in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley and attended a grad program at Harvard. She has spent the last twenty-five years with her husband, Doug Barry, in Tiburon, CA raising their four kids, Zachary, Brittany, Shaya, and Jackson, and their dog, Kona. On the side, she’s devoted to genealogy where she has uncovered many ideas for developing untold stories that help us appreciate the context of history, preserve lessons of the past, and honor memories through family storybooks. For fun, she likes to travel, ski in Sun Valley, Idaho, play tennis, and visit her family in Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, where she most enjoys Maryland hard crabs and hush puppies, Ledo’s pizza, and chocolate horns. You can visit her website at NewarkMinutemen.com.

AUTHOR NOTE

Thank you for reading Newark Minutemen! I am grateful for my Mom, Esther Levine Kaplan, trusting me with this story, helping to bring it to life, indulging me with the answers to every question and reading every draft. I was determined to understand. I spent hours and hours asking her to describe her life during this time; her brothers, the house, where they bought food, how they took out the trash, how they talked to relatives overseas. She transported me back to the Great Depression, well before World War II, to understand who, what and why.

I am also grateful to my cousin and partner on this story, Bruce Levine, who recommended book deals and constantly fed me sources. Also, his son- in-law Joe Miale helped me negotiate book partner deals and educated me about working with managers. Cousin Linda Zlatkiss, who grew up with my Mom, earned her invitation to the academy awards with her selfless efforts helping me to understand the life of the times and with Yiddish expressions, reading the story and not hesitating to make connections. Cousin Pauline Levine, may she rest in peace, added much color to the scenes growing up with my Mom on Hawthorne Ave.

I am blessed to be married to Doug Barry whose acknowledgement of the story gave me validation to delve into a story that would impact the world. He was a force in making sure I was treated fairly and protected throughout and convinced key people to be involved. And he should know that he is my role model in believing that ideas can become realities, even though the journey is scary. It was my seventeen-year-old son Jackson who I asked to read the first storyboards. His reaction was the most honest endorsement I could have received and truly gave me hope that someone would like the story. When my nineteen-year-old daughter Shaya wrote in a scene in the screenplay for herself to play, I knew that the story had the millennial appeal to make it a blockbuster. When my twenty-one year old, Brittany, directed the way-too-long multi-media presentation, I knew I had created an exciting three part story. She literally designed the cover of the book. When oldest son, Zachary, analyzed the sizzle reel for the movie, I knew I had something that was worthwhile. Also, My Dad, Stanley Kaplan, has always been an inspiration in making me feel that I had the gifts to do anything. And thanks to my Auntie Sandra who always asked and listened.

Thanks to Sue Turley who became my first partner for selling the screenplay. She believed in the story and helped me get to the very top through back doors in record time. Additional thanks to her partner Annie Rocco for her incredible introductions to the Redfords and Spielbergs. Equal thanks goes to Dan Adler who understood the story and its “why now” appeal, pitched it and planted seeds with some of the best talent in the industry. He wins for indulging every irritating call I made to him at all times of night, everywhere in the world.

Enormous thanks to award-winning author Catherine Stine for editing the book with such poignancy and insight. She taught me how to translate a screenplay into a novel. Thanks to Thescriptjoint who helped shape a novice screenplay into a salable work and Richie’s advice on the sales process. I also value the ever presence of my friend Steve Katz who always makes me think. It was he who suggested I approach the director of “American stories that have never been told.” I did and we got very close to working with Robert Redford and his team.

I am indebted to Sheri Joseph for teaching me about storytelling and character motivations and forcing me to go places in the story I wouldn’t have otherwise. She gave me the nudge I needed to create the website. Along the way, I learned there was not a lot of people who truly read a story and take the time to give feedback. Sheri was one of the rare ones. The debt goes even further when she “encouraged” her son Kevin who works for an entertainment company to help me on a presentation. Long story short, Kevin gained immediate interest and ended up leading the purchase of the story by his company Fulwell73 and created our partnership with the impressive Leo Pearlman who is dedicated to making a quality film.

Thanks to draft readers who included my sister Iris Tuttle and her eighteen-year-old son, Ethan Tuttle, who read both the screenplay and book and gave some of the best comments of anyone, my sister Donna Lewis who rightly encouraged me to go through the story with a fine tooth comb and her husband Mark for his advice. Thanks for further support from my nephew and nieces Justin, Marissa and Jillian. Thanks to my cousins, NJ Freeholder and Mayor Brian Levine and his daughter Ariella for their early feedback, as well as stories through the years from their father, my Uncle Joe. Thanks to Uncle Harry’s son, Rudy, for confirming details.

Thanks to Coral and Mike Kisseberth who commented on the sizzle reel, Jill Kinney and Sam Walravens who each read one of the first screenplay drafts, Terry Castle who gave early feedback and made me use Firstdraft, Tom Newell for his business advice and leadership and then legal support, Don Enright for reading the screenplay and encouraging me to make it more dangerous, Teri Jacks for her emotional support, Andi Thompson for her connects and bent ear, Nicole Klionsky for identifying the perfect cast, Julie Soja, Wendy McCarthy, Lisa Matthews, Suzanne Carswell, Gretchen Graham, Kristina Warren for their support, John Baldecchi and Jessica Flaum for their feedback and advice, Denise Bauer for getting it onto one of our former President’s desks, former newspaper editor Rob Rosenthal for his interest and accompanying me to the Hoover Institute for research, Jane Howard for testing characters against the enneagram, Inka Von Sternensfels for checking my German, David Hawk for his enthusiasm and recommending Save the Cat, David Hall for offering to drive me on my book tour, Robin Abrams for her connections including author Stacia Deutsch and LA Jewish film organizer, Hilary Helstein, Talent Manager Roger Strull for his interest and connections to agents and writers and my dog Kona for keeping me company during those late writing nights. NewarkMemories.com also gets a special thanks for their timeless resources.

Thanks to Marin City’s Ed Boon, who taught me to box so I could flavor the boxing scenes. Thanks to Howard Metcalfe, the son of undercover writer John Metcalfe, who helped me understand the life of working undercover in the American-Nazi Bund, shared his personal files and family book and granted permission to use his father’s diaries from the Hoover Institute. The FBI archives and reams of documents from the Investigation of un-American propaganda activities in the United States: Hearings before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives provided voices and testimonies and contained priceless Bund documents, initiation rites, home-movies, names, financials, photographs, songs, and more. The March of Times: Inside Nazi Germany directed by Jack Glenn in 1938, video images from the 1939 President’s day Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden as well as reprinted speeches in the Free America Pamphlet distributed that day helped to bring authenticity to the story. Warren Grover in his book Nazis in Newark reinforces stories about the Newark Minutemen and the Jewish mob. Chilling resources such as Ice Creatures: The Nazi Educational System by Dr. Tamar Ketko, and the expertly researched book Wunderlich’s Salute by Marvin D. Miller leave no doubt to the ties between Nazi Germany and the German-American Bund.

Finally, thanks to Mike Zeller for introducing me to my publisher Morgan James and Karen Anderson, David Hancock, Jim Howard, editor Cortney Donelson as well as Margo Toulouse, Taylor Chaffer and Amber Parott at Morgan James for embracing the book with so much enthusiasm.