Suzanne Braun Levine

Residence : New York City

Biographical information

Suzanne Braun Levine is a writer, editor and nationally recognized authority on women, media matters, and family issues. Her second book, INVENTING THE REST OF OUR LIVES: WOMEN IN SECOND ADULTHOOD, was published by Viking in January 2005. She recently appeared on Good Morning America to talk about the book. Her previous work, FATHER COURAGE: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MEN PUT FAMILY FIRST (Harcourt, 2000) was featured on the "Today" show. She is a contributor to the recently published anthology, SISTERHOOD IS FOREVER, edited by Robin Morgan.

She was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journalism Review, the premier magazine of media criticism, from 1989 to 1997. Previously she was the editor of Ms. Magazine, the groundbreaking feminist magazine, from its founding in 1972 until 1988. While at Ms., she developed and produced the Peabody-Award winning television special, "She's Nobody's Baby: A History of American Women in the 20th Century" (HBO, 1981) and edited the book of the same name that followed (Simon & Schuster). She also conceived and co-edited A Decade of Women: A Ms. History of the Seventies in Words and Pictures. Her essays have appeared in national publications including Newsweek, TV Guide, The Nation and O: The Oprah Magazine. She is a contributing editor of More Magazine. An article of hers in that magazine about the conflict between younger and older women caught the attention of "Oprah" producers, and became the basis of a one-hour show on which she was featured.

She conceived, produced and moderated week-long programs of lectures on American Families at the Chautauqua Institution, a historical summer program of issues and culture, where she has been a regular speaker since 1984. Participants included then-Governor Bill Clinton, Fred Rogers and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

Ms. Levine has been a frequent guest on national television programs, including "Oprah", the "Today" show and "Charlie Rose", and on CNN, The Oxygen Network, Fox News Channel, among others. She has also been a guest on national radio shows, including "Marketplace" on National Public Radio. She has lectured widely before professional groups and on campuses across the country.

Ms. Levine has taught journalism at several universities, most recently at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. In 1989-90, she was a Fellow at the Media Studies Center of the Freedom Forum. She is on the board of the Metropolitan Synagogue of New York.

Discussion topics

• Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Defining Second Adulthood by Living it
  Second Adulthood is a new stage for women - a burst of energy, freedom, and daring that is fired by a longer life expectancy, better health, and more confidence than any generation that has preceded us. It is also a journey that each woman embarks on somewhere around her fiftieth birthday. It begins with a new sense of defiance - "The Fuck-You Fifties" - and a growing desire and ability to say No! and proceeds through a period of confusion - "The Fertile Void" - and into a landscape of revised priorities and renegotiated relationships and self discovery. "You Are Not Who You Were, Only Older"
• "You Are Not Who You Were, Only Older"
  Like our adolescent children, and like ourselves back at the launch of our first adulthood, we are making an important life transition - one that involves redefining roles, reconfiguring our relationships, getting to know ourselves anew, and experiencing major physiological and psychological upheavals. No wonder we sometimes feel we are falling apart, losing ourselves. But that is not the case. Instead, we are finding ourselves, many of us for the first time. The difference between feeling lost and feeling found is in the phrase: you are not who you were, only older. The lecture will explore the meaning and ramifications of this important insight, and attendees will be encouraged to incorporate those ideas into their own experience.

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