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Susan SwartzShow details |
Susan Swartz is a newspaper columnist, author, public radio commentator and long-time journalist. She's been writing about women since she reported on consciousness raising groups and covered a rising star in the women's movement named Gloria Steinem.
She says: Back then I was also going to New York to cover the latest in fashion and beauty, which is pretty typical of how most of us continued to grow, torn between fascinations - our head wrapped around issues, our face in the mirror.
Living in the San Francisco Bay Area gives Susan a good place to report on outspoken women and Boomer angst which she does in her column for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and the New York Times News Service. I've always said that being a journalist made be a better feminist. And being a feminist made me a better journalist. Because both insist that you keep your eyes open, challenge stereotypes and ask "what's this about?"
This is her second book on the mid-life women she calls JUICY TOMATOES. They're not just any woman over fifty. They have daring and confidence and they can be wonderfully ironic about life because they've been around to see so much.
At the very least, as it says in her book, they "have survived teenagers, aging parents, multiple downturns in the economy, dubious mammograms and the half century mark. And they are unstoppable."
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Jimmy Laura Smull, Ph.D.Show details |
Jimmy Laura Smull, Ph.D., a cultural anthropologist with a doctorate in philosophy of human science is an authority on the subject of adult development. Her area of specialization is helping women identify and break free from destructive childhood ideologies and religious programming to advance psychologically and spiritually. Dr. Smull conducted a "Body, Mind and Spirit" conference for 200 women in New York City. With the encouragement of her professors and colleagues, she decided to publish her findings in her first book, Healing Eve: The Woman's Journey from Religious Fundamentalism to Spiritual Freedom (Ampersand Press, 2005). In The Silver Pearl, Smull applies her model of adult development to the co-researchers' studies of women at midlife and beyond who are defying stereotypes of aging.
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Carol Orsborn, Ph.D.Show details |
Carol Orsborn, Ph.D. is the author of 15 books for/about baby boomers including The Art of Resilience (Three Rivers Press/Random House) and Nothing Left Unsaid (Conari). She runs an on-line spiritual resource site for boomer women www.TheSilverPearl.com, named for the book she co-authored with Dr. Jimmy L. Smull. She is also SVP and co-chair of Fleishman-Hillard's FH Boom, the first global marketing-to-boomers practice by a top five PR firm, where she serves as chief blogger at www.TheBoomerBlog.com. Dr. Orsborn first came to national attention when she founded Superwoman's Anonymous, an organization that set the tone for her generation of baby boomer women at an earlier stage of their lives by bringing such then revolutionary notions as simplicity and balance to national attention, including appearances on Oprah and The Today Show. A research associate with UCLA's Center for the Study of Religion, Dr. Orsborn helped pioneer the spirituality and business movement, once again breaking new ground for members of the baby boom generation. Her doctorate from Vanderbilt University is in the history and critical theory of religion. Carol has been married for thirty-five years and has two grown children. Most recently, she co-authored BOOM: Marketing to the Ultimate Power Consumer--the Baby Boomer Woman by Mary Brown and Carol Orsborn, Ph.D.
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Sandra Call-SultanShow details |
Sandra Call Sultan founded Call Productions and the Women of a Certain Age Conference series in 2004. Her experience, as a woman in the middle of her life, seeking employment, was the driving force in developing Women of a Certain Age Conferences. After an endless amount of research, evening classes at the local college, resume writing courses and job interviews, she came to the conclusion that she was not employable; or if she was employable it would have to be with another women in the middle of her life.
With over 23 years of experience in coordinating, planning and directing regional, national and international conferences, events and trade shows, she decided to take her expertise as a conference planner and organize conferences that she truly had a passion for……women of a certain age….women in the middle of their lives.
In pursuit of this vision she organized and produced her first conference held in Napa in October of 2005. One of Sandra’s talents is attracting quality people to work with her and the Napa conference provided just that; profound, inspiring and expert speakers to talk about finance, health careers and life at midlife!
Sandra’s goal is to develop Women of a Certain Age Conferences as a resource and support center and has built a network of female professionals, authors, motivational speakers to support like minded women through this midlife journey in a graceful and dignified way. Her mission is to empower women in the center of their lives to get in touch with their wisdom, their strength and power. Sandra and her network of powerful professionals want women to live the second half of their lives on their own terms and even more successful than the first half.
Sandra lives in Napa Valley with her husband and 18 year old son. She is experiencing the “sandwich” generation as caregiver for her mother and she will experience the empty nest syndrome as her son heads off to his freshmen year at UCSB in the fall of 2006.
