Lunch & Learn: Conversations with Women Making a Difference

Join in conversations with Suzanne Levine, Amy Litzenberger, and Amy Ferris about leadership parity, women helping women, and so much more.

Amy Ferris is an author, a writer, a screenwriter, an editor, and a playwright. Her memoir, Marrying George Clooney, Confessions From a Midlife Crisis (Seal Press) was adapted into an Off-Broadway play in 2012. Amy has written for both the small screen (TV) and the big screen (Feature Films). As a screenwriter, she was nominated for a Best Screenplay Award (BET, Black Reel Award) for her adaptation of the film, Funny Valentines (Director, Julie Dash) As an editor, she curated Shades of Blue, Writers on Depression, Suicide and Feeling Blue (Seal Press), and co-edited the anthology, Dancing at the Shame Prom (Seal Press). She co-authored Old School Love (Harper Collins, 2020) with Rev Run of RUN DMC fame. Amy serves on a variety of advisory boards supporting women and the Arts. She co-founded The Milford Readers & Writers Festival and is on faculty at The Kauai Writer’s Conference.

In 2019 she was named one of Women’s eNews 21 Leaders for the 21st Century, in 2021 she was a recipient of NextTribe’s The 12 Women Who Changed the World, and in 2022, Amy was awarded and honored by the Thoughtful Book Festival as Inspirational Woman in Media. Her new memoir, Mighty Gorgeous — A Little Book About Messy Love, is published by SheWritesPress.

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 only woman editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. In her recent work Levine has defined a new stage of life – Second Adulthood – which is the subject of her books. She comments on her findings on her website suzannebraunlevine.com on television and radio.

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.” 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.

How We Love Now: Sex and the New Intimacy in Second Adulthood (Viking/January 2, 2012), is the groundbreaking, funny, poignant and sometimes shocking “next chapter” in Levine’s ongoing conversation with Women In Second Adulthood, the stage she celebrated in two popular books: Inventing the Rest of Our Lives and Fifty is the New Fifty. She has also written two ebooks: You Gotta Have Girlfriends and Can Men Have It All?

Her earlier books include Father Courage: What Happens When Men Put Family First (Harcourt, 2000) and an oral history of Bella Abzug (with Mary Thom) published by Farrar Straus & Giroux (2007)

She is an advisor to several women’s and media groups and on the Board of Civic Ventures, a nonprofit think tank on boomers, work and social purpose.

Amy Litzenberger, with a career spanning nearly two decades in investment banking, has extensive expertise in corporate finance, including public and private offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and financial consulting. She is passionate about her community and tries to do her small part to make the world a better place.

Amy holds a degree from Vassar College and an MBA from New York University. During her finance career, Amy managed over $100 million in public and private financings and was a key player in a small team handling financings and buyouts worth over $450 million. After retiring and moving to Milford, PA., Amy shifted her focus to non-profit involvement and community service. She co-founded Take The Lead, a non-profit whose goal is women’s leadership parity, and has been actively involved in the Board of Directors of Kindred Spirits Arts Programs since 2002. Her contributions extend to various other roles, including co-directorship of the Milford Music Festival for two years and assisting with the Center for Developmental Disabilities and Delaware Highlands Conservancy annual dinners. She also co-founded a handbag company and served as a Director of Dime Bank.

This Lunch & Learn program includes a homemade hot lunch.

Please note this lecture space is only accessible via a one-flight staircase. No elevator or ramp access is available.