GWEN SUESSE
After acquiring a bachelor of arts from Wagner College, Gwen earned a master of arts in teaching from Harvard University. She is a certified Martha Beck Life Coach, certified by the Creative Grief Studio as a Creative Grief Support Practitioner, and certified as an administrator of the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory®. Gwen has broad history of professional experience, including teaching, choral conducting, working in human resources, life coaching, leading volunteer organizations, writing, and conducting workshops. She has presented keynotes at women’s conferences and charity events.
Gwen has lived the modern woman’s conundrums. Her first book, Womansong: Balance and Harmony in a Feminine Key, was the natural outgrowth of her struggle to reconcile the patriarchal identity of her youth with the growing awareness in her adulthood that women are entitled to their own dreams and self-realization. The book addresses her quest to find a way to balance family, professional, and personal goals. Womansong won two awards, taking First Place in Women's Issues in the Indie Excellence Contest, and tying for Bronze in the Ippy Awards Contest.
Her second book, Notes from Planet Widow: Finding My Way After Loss, picks up her story years later, after the unexpected death of her beloved husband landed her in the alien territory of widowhood. It recounts how a trail of insights knit themselves together to restore her sense of wholeness within the altered context of being on her own.
Active in the communities she’s been pleased to call home, Gwen served on a board of education and on numerous boards of community nonprofit organizations, including presidency of Tryon Concert Association for fifteen years. She lives in Tryon, North Carolina, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
See Gwen’s blog, Now It’s Time to Dance, and learn more about her work as a life coach at act2lifecoaching.com.