About Suzanne Braun Levine

Suzanne Braun Levine
Suzanne Braun Levine
Photo by: Joanna Levine

Suzanne Braun Levine is a writer, editor and nationally recognized authority on the ongoing changes in women’s lives. She was the first editor of Ms. magazine (1972-1988), and the first woman editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. In her books Levine has defined a new stage of life – Second Adulthood.

While at Ms., Levine developed and produced the Peabody-Award winning HBO special and book “She’s Nobody’s Baby: A History of American Women in the 20th Century” as well as “The Decade of Women: In Words and Pictures” and led the magazine to many journalism awards.

She created the annual week-long series of lectures about the family at the Chautauqua Institution. (Speakers included Bill Clinton, Margaret Mead and Mr. Rogers.) She was the guest Editor-in-Chief of the 30th Anniversary issue of Ms. magazine in 2002 and was honored by the magazine as a “Ms. Woman of the Year” in 2004. In 2020 she was named one of the “21 Leaders for the 21st Century” by WOMEN’SeNEWS. She was a presenter at TEDx Women in 2011 and was honored on MAKERS.com – the largest video collection of women’s stories – for Women’s History Month 2014. She is a founder (in 2016) of the Milford Readers and Writers Festival.

Levine is author of a series of books about women over fifty: INVENTING THE REST OF OUR LIVES, FIFTY IS THE NEW FIFTY, HOW WE LOVE NOW: Sex and the New Intimacy in Second Adulthood and YOU GOTTA HAVE GIRLFRIENDS: A Post-fifty Posse is Good for Your Health. She named the tumultuous transition to second adulthood “the Fertile Void,” coined the phrases “the Fuck-You Fifties,” and “No is not a four-letter word” to describe women’s new quest for authenticity.

Her other books include Father Courage: What Happens When Men Put Family First (Harcourt, 2000) and Can Men Have It All? What the ‘Daddy Track’ Means for Women (Shebooks.net/April, 2014) examining the changing role of fatherhood and the state of the work-life balance for modern couples. Levine’s essay on the politics of family life –“Parenting: A New Social Contract” – is included in SISTERHOOD IS FOREVER, edited by Robin Morgan (Atria Books, 2003).

She is co-author (with Mary Thom) of a widely acclaimed oral history of Congresswoman Bella Abzug (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2007). BELLA ABZUG: How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy, Pissed Off Jimmy Carter, Battled for the Rights of Women and Workers, Rallied Against War and for the Planet, and Shook Up Politics Along the Way, chronicles the life and passion of one of the Women’s Movement’s most influential leaders.

can men have it all book cover small
You Gotta Have Girlfriends - A Post-Fifty Posse Is Good For Your Health
How We Love Now Book Cover
From its founding in 1972 to 1988, Levine edited Ms. magazine the feminist publication which became a voice for the Women’s Movement, pioneered a new kind of personal reporting and political activism in its pages. The magazine received worldwide recognition for its coverage of previously unreported or under-reported issues that concerned women – from abortion, rape, domestic violence, genital mutilation, to equal pay and access to credit, sports opportunities for girls, and women in the media and arts. Many of these issues remain at the center of national and international political debates and policies today.
Ms. 15th Anniversary
While at Ms., Levine developed and produced the Peabody-Award winning HBO special “She’s Nobody’s Baby: A History of American Women in the 20th Century.” A book based on the special was written by Susan Dworkin and edited by Levine (A Fireside Book, Simon & Schuster, 1983). She also conceived and co-edited with Harriet Lyons, A Decade of Women: A Ms. History of the Seventies in Words and Pictures (Putnam, l980).

She was the guest Editor-in-Chief of the 30th Anniversary issue of Ms. magazine in 2002. In 2004 Levine was honored by the magazine as a “Ms. Woman of the Year.” Her papers are now in the Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s Archives at Smith College.

Ms. Magazine 30th Anniversary Issue

She was the editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, the prestigious monitor of media matters, from 1989 to 1997. Her essay “A News Consumer’s Bill of Right’s” is included in CONSUMING DESIRES (Island Press, 1999) edited by Roger Rosenblatt.

She is on the Board of Encore.org – second acts for the greater good, the non-profit think tank on boomers, work and social purpose that has launched the Encore Careers Movement, the Ms. Foundation for Education and Communication, Inc. and the Advisory Board for the Women’s Media Center and The Transition Network.

Suzanne began her magazine journalism career as an editor and reporter for Seattle, Mademoiselle, McCall’s magazines and Time/Life Books, after graduating with honors from Harvard University. She has received numerous honors and taught journalism at several universities. She has keynoted major conferences including, The San Miguel Writers Conference, the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop and the Annual Women at Woodstock Gatherings for women over 50.

She lives in New York with her husband Robert F. Levine, an attorney. They have two adult children.

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