Backgrounder: Sandra Beckwith bio

While she now writes and speaks full time, recovering publicist Sandra Beckwith has more than 25 years of award-winning publicity experience. She has received the national Silver Anvil award from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) for her shoestring publicity program promoting a subscription newsletter she created. She also received a national award for creating, managing and publicizing the best public relations program in the beverage alcohol industry, and was honored with a half dozen regional PRSA awards. Beckwith has a degree in journalism and public relations from Utica College of Syracuse University.

She is the author of Streetwise Complete Publicity Plans: How to Create Publicity That Will Spark Media Exposure and Excitement (Adams Media 2003) and WHY CAN'T A MAN BE MORE LIKE A WOMAN? (Kensington 1995). She is a past contributing editor of three trade journals and a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the American Society of Business Publication Editors and the Public Relations Society of America.

Beckwith writes regularly for consumer and trade magazines and for corporations and nonprofit agencies on a range of topics. Her articles have appeared in VFW Magazine, Old House Journal, GRIT, e-Pregnancy, MyBusiness, New Age Journal, VOWS, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and many other publications. She speaks regularly to a wide range of corporate and community audiences on streetwise publicity, the lighter side of gender differences, and finding the courage to change.

Self-employed since 1985, Beckwith’s earlier experience includes positions at an educational publishing firm near Madison, Wisc.; Burson-Marsteller/Chicago, one of the world’s largest public relations firms; and the former Heublein Inc. in Hartford, Conn., a beverage alcohol distiller/marketer. She owns Beckwith Communications in Fairport, N.Y.