Lee Kravitz

In a 20-year career as an editor and magazine executive, Lee Kravitz launched, led and ran some of the nation's most widely read publications. His first book -- the highly acclaimed memoir UNFINISHED BUSINESS: One Man's Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things -- chronicles the ten journeys he took to reconnect with his life after he lost his job as editor-in-chief of Parade, the Sunday newspaper magazine, in October 2007. It is also the topic of the blogs he writes for Psychology Today and his own website -- www.MyUnfinishedBusiness.com.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Kravitz earned a B.A. in English Literature at Yale and an M.S. in Journalism at Columbia. After college he traveled overland by Land Rover from London to Calcutta, beginning a 10-year stint as a freelance writer and photographer that took him to more than 30 countries.

At Scholastic Inc, where he began his editing career, Kravitz was editorial director of several classroom magazines, including Update, Junior Scholastic, Search, Choices and Science World. As director of new media and special projects, he created and led literacy, civic-awareness and human rights campaigns that involved millions of young people in the U.S. and around the world. 

A pioneer in creating multi-platform media for young people, Kravitz was founding editor of React, Parade's interactive news magazine for teenagers. Distributed weekly by more than 250 newspapers, React grew to a weekly readership of 3 million and in the late 1990s its website was one of the most popular teen destinations on the Internet.

From 2000 to 2007, Kravitz was editor-in-chief of Parade -- with 70 million readers, the most widely read publication in the United States. Parade's mission under his leadership was "to tell stories that connect emotionally to everyday Americans, moving them to actions that improve their lives. the nation and the world." 

In UNFINISHED BUSINESS, Kravitz tells his own story -- it begins with his unexpected departure from Parade and his subsequent realization that he had allowed work to distance him from everything important in his life, including his friends, family and ideals. He commits himself to a year of closing circles and making amends. "All of us have unfinished business." he writes. "It can be a friend we lost touch with or a mentor we never thanked; it can be a call we meant to make or a pledge we failed to honor. It can be a goal we lost sight of or a spiritual quest we put on hold. Too often, life takes over and pushes the experiences that might enrich, enlarge or even complete us to the bottom of our to-do list." UNFINISHED BUSINESS was named the first-ever selection of 1 World 1 Book, a new global book club, and it is currently being translated into six languages. On www.MyUnfinishedBusiness.com, Kravitz offers extensive tools for readers who want to address their own unfinished business.

The paperback of UNFINISHED BUSINESS, available in May 2011, contains a new foreword by PASSAGES author Gail Sheehy. It also includes a new chapter of unfinished business stories by readers, a reading guide for book clubs and a print version of the Unfinished Business toolkit.

Kravitz has served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, including the Public Education Network, The League, National History Day, GenerationOn and Youth Service America. He is board president of Youth Communication, a publisher of writing by and for inner-city teens and youth in foster care. He has been active on advisory boards of the Freedom Forum, Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the National Council for the Social Studies, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Institute of Medicine and numerous other organizations.

He and his wife Elizabeth Kaplan, a literary agent, live in New York City and Clinton Corners, New York, with their three children -- Benjamin, Caroline, and Noah  -- who attend New York City public schools.

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