President: Marianne Wolf-Astrauskas

Angie Leszczak is a freelance writer and an author.  Angie has self published one weight loss book for the secular market titled How'd You Do It??  -Yes weight loss is this easy.  She has completed her second weight loss book, marketed for the Christian market and is currently waiting for publication.  Angie is also involved with her church where she is currently finishing the re-write of the Junior High curriculum, which is published world wide as well as helping edit a curriculum for PASS Pregnancy Center in Tinley Park, IL.  Angie loves to travel and hike in her spare time.

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Pamela Dittmer McKuen is an award-winning freelance writer and
journalist whose work appears in numerous consumer, trade, alumni and corporate publications. She is a frequent contributor to the Chicago
Tribune, including a column about the homeowner association lifestyle
called “Community Living.”

Pamela has been honored by the National Federation of Press Women, the National Association of Real Estate Editors and Writer’s Digest. She is an adjunct instructor in the Journalism Department at Columbia
College Chicago. She enjoys arts, travel and kittens, and hates playing Scrabble.

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Deidra Somerville is currently Senior Grant Developer with the Chicago Housing Authority, where she has been responsible for leading the grant development team and securing more than $100 million in grant resources for capital projects, supportive services and scholarship opportunities for public and assisted housing residents for 5 years. She also currently works as a reporter for the South Holland Today, a post she has held for the past 7 years.

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Susan Brauer holds a BSEE and an MSEE from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is currently the Associate Dean of Technology at DeVry University, Chicago Metro.
Her experiences as a returning woman, starting out on the road to higher education at the age of 33 as a wife and mother of six, then becoming a successful engineer and manager, an author, and owner and president of a publishing company are the basis for her presentations and workshops that empower women to believe in themselves and to follow their dreams.
Susan is founder and president of the publishing company, Dreamers Tapestry, Inc. (www.dreamerstapestry.com), she published her autobiography, an odyssey of abuse and triumph entitled, Just Keep Dancing which was awarded top honors in the IWPA’s prestigious Matte Palmer Communications Competition.
Susan's experiences are the basis for presentations and workshops that focus on many of the career issues women face today. Her presentations: “Changes”, “Effective Presentations” (aka) “Podium Panic”, “Bringing Your Book to Reality”, “Career and Life Transitions”, and “Just Keep Dancing: The Power of Change” have been well received at various professional organizations, colleges, and universities in the Midwest.

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Elizabeth Dickey- “I'm on my third career,” states Elizabeth. “After practicing law, primarily in the Cook County Juvenile court, and writing several novel manuscripts, I am now answering to a higher court.  In May, I received my Master of Divinity degree from McCormick Theological Seminary and am pursuing ordination within the Presbyterian Church.  Right now I am interning as a chaplain at Northwestern Hospital, while debating whether to stay in chaplaincy or to go on for a doctorate degree and a possible teaching career.”

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Cecilia Green moved to Illinois in 1990 from Wichita when husband Darrell took a position with the Art Institute of Chicago. She left her job as vice president of public relations at Kansas’ largest advertising agency and the Kansas affiliate of NFPW, where she had served as president of the Wichita branch. She soon discovered IWPA and served in several offices and as president. She became involved in the National Federation of Press Women board, where she is currently co-chair of the 2010 NFPW Conference in Chicago.
After spending 10 years each establishing the public relations departments at two associations – the Society of Actuaries and the Turnaround Management Association – she decided to “retire” in May 2009 to follow her passion for the arts. She co-founded Arts in Bartlett, a local arts council in her village, in 2002 and has directed its Festival of the Arts since 2003. She opened the Bartlett Center for the Arts in March, where local artists sell their works and art workshops are held. She also manages a gallery at Bartlett Village Hall. Her two most recent “start-ups” are the Downtown Bartlett Business Group to plan special events to draw more people to downtown shops and restaurants and her own firm, Evergreen Public Relations. She also serves on Bartlett’s Economic Development Commission. .
Cecilia has a journalism degree from Wichita State University and holds two professional designations: APR (Accredited by the Public Relations Society of America) and CAE (Certified Association Executive, from the American Society of Association Executives). She has won several national and local awards for her work, including IWPA’s Silver Feather, the prestigious Bronze Anvil from the national PRSA and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the local PRSA chapter.

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Suzanne Hanney is editor of Chicago’s StreetWise, sold by people who are or were homeless, after working Downstate, including a stint as “Ronald Reagan editor” in his boyhood hometown.
Suzanne graduated from Northwestern University’s journalism school, and then edited a weekly newspaper in Marseilles, which she briefly published.
Next, she was lifestyle editor of the daily Dixon Evening Telegraph. Then she interviewed Reagan’s contemporaries, compiled archives for a special edition and consulted with global media.
She later served as assistant news editor, editor of a new weekly paper, then as a copyeditor at the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa.In Chicago, she freelanced for The American Banker and United Press International.
Suzanne was elected four times to a Local School Council in a Chicago public school. She is president of the Illinois Woman’s Press Association and both scholarship chair and vice president for print of the Association for Women Journalists in Chicago.

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Historian & Archivist: Marlene Cook

Marlene Cook has been a member of IWPA since 1973 and has held every office, except treasurer. She was president for two terms, 1983-1987, and was director of the NFPW conference in 1985. She currently serves as historian. Marlene also served NFPW as historian and has attended 37 of the past 38 conferences.
Marlene started writing after her children were in school and she was haunted by a high school division teacher who told her she’d never amount to anything. She said she’d be barefoot and pregnant and have a house full of kids.
Well, at 30 years old and with four children she vowed that teacher wasn’t going to be right. She went back to school, got a job as a journalist and hasn’t stopped. She’s worked for Star Newspapers, Southtown Economist, Chicago Tribune and a couple of smaller community papers. She was Community Relations Director for the Village of Dolton and was Director of the Dolton Chamber of Commerce. She wrote for South Holland’s monthly village newsletter from 1993 until 2006.
Today she is editor of the First Focus, her church’s monthly magazine and Village Voice, Lansing’s quarterly newsletter. She also writes a newsletter for her 1952 class of Fenger High School.

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