Suzanne Slesin

Suzanne Slesin has been involved in the home design field as an international journalist since the early 1970s. Born in New York City, she majored in the History of Art at Wellesley College and has an M.A. in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art at London University. One of her first jobs in publishing was as Managing Editor at Industrial Design magazine. Since then she has worked as the Director of Communications and the Advertising Manager at Knoll International, has been an editor and writer at New York and Esquire magazines, and for 17 years, was an editor and reporter for the Home Section of the New York Times. She then became the Design Editor of the newly re-launched House & Garden magazine in 1995. In 2000, she was named Editor-in-Chief of HomeStyle magazine and in the fall of 2003, as the Editor of O at Home, an offshoot of O, the Oprah magazine, she was instrumental in creating and developing a shelter magazine that was based around the concept of women expressing themselves in their homes. She has written for the Real Estate and Home Sections of the New York Times and freelances for numerous interior design magazines.

In addition to her magazine and newspaper work, Slesin has co-authored over 20 books on design and home-furnishings, beginning with High-Tech: The Industrial Style and Source Book for the Home (with Joan Kron in 1978). Slesin was also the co-author, starting in 1982, of the innovative and trend-setting Style Books that include French Style, English Style, Caribbean Style, Japanese Style and Mittel Europa: Rediscovering the Style and Design of Central Europe, all published by Clarkson Potter, a division of Random House, Inc.
In 2002, Slesin founded Pointed Leaf Press to publish high quality, photography-driven monographs on personalities (some well-known, some undiscovered) in the worlds of design, architecture, and fashion. Titles now include Over the Top: Helena Rubinstein, Extraordinary Style, Beauty, Art, Fashion, and Design; The Complete Kagan Vladimir Kagan: A Lifetime of Avant-Garde Design; and In the Pink: Dorothy Draper, America’s Most Fabulous Decorator. Drawing Fashion, the Art of Kenneth Paul Block by Susan Mulcahy was released in Spring of 2008. Pointed Leaf Press’ Fall 2008 introduction was Houses in My Heart: An International Decorator’s Colorful Journey by Carleton Varney; Fall 2009 saw the introduction of All-American: The Exuberant Style of William Diamond and Anthony Baratta.