At A Glance
A self described "crusader for joy and our common humanity," Susan Fales-Hill has dedicated her twenty-seven year writing career to bridging the American racial divide by demolishing stereotypes of women and of people of color. One might say it is the
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- Always Wear Joy
Susan Fales-Hill's real life is as interesting as the acclaimed novels she writes. The daughter of an interracial couple married in the late 1950s, Susan had a front row seat to the diverse and glamorous salons her mother would host, whose guests included the likes of Maya Angelou, Bobby Short, Diahann Carrol, and Gore Vidal to name only a few. Moving between worlds inhabited by performers and artists on New York's Upper West Side to the summer estates of her father's white aristocratic family, Susan learned firsthand that a strong identity and the appreciation of different cultures makes for valuable life lessons. Come summer time, the entire family-including her mother-in false eyelashes and costume jewelry-would flee to the summer estate in New Jersey's hunt country that belonged to her father's aristocratic family. Here quail shooting and riding displaced the Double Dutch jump that Fales-Hill learned in Brooklyn while visiting her grand-pere, a Haitian political émigré whose family had also enjoyed prominence (he could claim ancestors who had fought in the American Revolutionary war) and who taught Susan that black was beautiful and anything but inferior. Funny, touching and always engaging, Susan Fales-Hill connects with her audiences on a variety of topics including:
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- Bridging Unbridgeable Divides: A Nation United by Two Races
Susan pulls from her own personal experience and history to give the lie to our nation's racial barrier.
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- Caregiving
An estimated fifty percent of American women will leave the work force at a stage in their lives to care for an ailing parent. Author, television producer, style maven and self-described "warrior for Joy," Susan Fales-Hill was one of those women. In her early thirties, she began the long slow march to farewell with her beloved mother, singer, actress, dancer, Josephine Premice. For six and half years, this vibrant performer battled emphysema, and spent the last two and a half years of her life bed ridden and tethered to a respirator (albeit, ALWAYS in full makeup and wardrobe.) In spite of the harrowing nights in and out of emergency rooms, Fales-Hill considers her years as a primary caregiver the greatest, soul stretching gift of her life. With humor and candor, Fales-Hill shares the invaluable lessons to be learned in such wrenching circumstances, among them the true value of time and the invincibility of love and a valiant spirit. For anyone who's had to stand by helplessly while a loved one slipped into the arms of death, for anyone currently ministering a terminally ill person, Susan's message is one of unabashed hope and healing.
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- Semper Fabulous: The Women Who Changed America
Having grown up among her mother's coterie of talented, trail blazing performer friends: Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson etc…Susan has a unique insider's perspective on the struggle to achieve equality.
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- We Shall Overcome…In Couture!
Fashion as a tool of social advancement for women of color.
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A self described "crusader for joy and our common humanity," Susan Fales-Hill has dedicated her twenty-seven year writing career to bridging the American racial divide by demolishing stereotypes of women and of people of color. One might say it is the job for which she was born.
Her parents' interracial marriage in 1958 made national headlines—as well as for a truly multicultural upbringing before the term ever became fashionable. Her mother, trailblazing singer/actress/dancer, Josephine Premice, performed with the likes of Lena Horne and Alvin Ailey, and her father, Timothy Fales, hailed from a white Social Register family. As Susan says of her Fales ancestors, "Those that didn't come on the Mayflower came on the 'second' boat." Susan thought nothing of watching her mother perform in an acclaimed Broadway musical one moment and host one of her celebrated salons, where Maya Angelou and Bobby Short might rub elbows with Richard Burton, the next. In the multilingual Premice/Faleses clan, family dinner conversations were held in French, Italian, Creole, and English (with plenty of swearing in each idiom.)
After graduating with honors from Harvard College, Susan began her writing career as an apprentice on the original Cosby Show (starring Bill Cosby & Phylicia Rashad). Simultaneously, she cut her teeth as the show's "warm-up" person, training which (along with the weekly recitation of classic French poems at her alma mater, the Lycee Francais de New York) honed her public speaking skills and banished any fear of facing even the most hostile, rotten fruit- wielding crowd. After two years at Cosby, she worked on the show's successful spin-off, A Different World, where, at the age of twenty-eight, she became Co-Executive Producer/Head Writer, one of the youngest in the business.
Under Susan's stewardship, A Different World was nominated for the prestigious Humanitas Award, and her work on an episode about AIDS received national recognition, including from Planned Parenthood and the California Governor's Committee for Employment of Disabled Persons. In a New York Times article re-assessing the series eleven years after it ended, Emily Nussbaum called it "truly groundbreaking television." Susan went on to produce three more Network television series, as well as to co-create Linc's (starring Pam Grier) for Showtime. Variety described the series as "nothing less than the most intelligent black centered series in memory-an urban Cheers with considerably more bite." Susan is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Producer's Guild of America Nova Award.
A seminal article she wrote for Vogue about growing up bi-racial led her to pen her memoir about her mother, Always Wear Joy, which won critical acclaim and was a finalist for both the NAACP Image Award and the Hurston Wright Legacy Award. Her next book, the novel One Flight Up, was praised as "a dazzling narrative of New York's social diorama with wit, irony, and great humor" by André Leon Talley, editor at large,Vogue.
Her latest novel, Imperfect Bliss (2012) updates Austen's Pride and Prejudice to tell the story of a respectable, middle-class, middle-age couple, Harold and Forsythia, with four eminently marriageable daughters, one of whom wins the starring role in a reality series. Praised as a "stylish, sharp edged satire" by Publisher's Weekly, Imperfect Bliss is a wickedly funny take on the ways that courtship and love have changed—even as they've stayed the same.
Susan is known in New York's philanthropic circles for her generous support of education and the arts and her championship of diversity in the rarefied world of ballet (she served for eight years on the board of American Ballet Theater, four as its Vice Chair), as well as for her unerring sense of style (she was named to International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame). She was also the recipient of the 2013 Inspiration Award by the National Eating Disorders Association.
Multifaceted, funny, mesmerizing, and entertaining, Susan Fales-Hill shows us that we are more alike than we are different.
I Named My Mixed-Race Daughter for a Slave-Trading Town
The New York TimesTo honor my forebears, my husband and I named our only child Bristol, after the town in Rhode Island where some of the Faleses first settled in the 17th century.… Read more
Is It Even Possible to Talk Politics Anymore?
Town & CountryT&C's new etiquette columnist, Susan Fales-Hill, on whether people can agree to disagree in this election cycle.… Read more
Icons & Innovators: A Conversation with Norman Lear
The Greene SpaceHost Susan Fales-Hill, author and award-winning television producer, returned for the next installment of her conversation series with groundbreaking thinkers and artists whose work has shaped our cultural landscape — and those who will define its future.… Read more
As the speaker at City Harvest's On Your Plate luncheon, Susan played an important role in generating support for City Harvest's mission to feed hungry New Yorkers. She spoke eloquently about the imperative to look past superficial differences for our common humanity, in a way that was serious and entertaining for our audience. Susan's energy and self-motivation were felt throughout the room as she shared stories from her childhood, her novels, and her recent experience volunteering to distribute food for City Harvest, connections which certainly inspired generosity among the luncheon's guests.
City Harvest
As lively, endearing and vivacious as the women portrayed in One Flight Up , Susan Fales-Hill, entertained the audience at Lighthouse International's Dorothy Strelsin Author Series with engaging stories of her wild and wonderful characters.
Lighthouse International
Susan Fales-Hill has the kind of sparkle that one can only hope to bring to an event. She captivated the audience throughout her talk - she made us laugh, she made us get teary, and she knew her stuff when it came to our issues. We cannot recommend her enough - having Fales-Hill will help make your night a success.
Planned Parenthood of New York City
As an intellectual, she is brilliant. As an author, she is talented. As a speaker, she is mesmerizing and entertaining. And, as a personality, she is delightfully engaging. Overall, Susan is a very classy lady. We had an idea of what to expect when we invited Susan Fales-Hill to be our event speaker (or so we thought), but she exceeded all our expectations. Within moments of meeting her, she waltzed right in and captured the hearts of all present. The venue was ours, but Susan made it hers. We were 500 guests being informed and entertained in her "living room" and we loved every minute of it.
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