Category: Articles - Advice

Dear Prudence (CS) by Margo Howard

Margo Howard is the daughter of Eppie Lederer, who wrote an advice column as Ann Landers for over 40 years, until her death in June 2002. Howard, following in her mother's footsteps, has spent the last four years writing the "Dear Prudence" column for Slate, Bill Gates' online opinion magazine first helmed by Michael Kinsley. In it, she answers readers' questions about life and love in a straightforward, often irreverent manner.Howard started at the Chicago Tribune in the late '60s. After a half a year, syndicates were vying for her services. To be in the best syndicate at the time (The Field Syndicate), she moved to the Chicago Daily-News. Her thrice-weekly column, "Margo," was social commentary written with humor.When Howard moved to Los Angeles in 1977, she left the news business and freelanced for magazines as varied as The New Republic, People, The Nation and TV Guide. She has been a guest columnist for New York Newsday and a columnist for Boston Magazine.Howard has written one book, Eppie: The Story of Ann Landers, a family memoir published in 1981.Having been divorced, she is now married to Dr. Ronald Weintraub, a Harvard heart surgeon, and she has three grown children. Her elder daughter is a wife and mother; her middle child, a son, is a screenwriter based in London; and her younger daughter is a physician.Howard attended Brandeis University -- and, like her mother, did not graduate. Howard has served on several boards over the years. She says she is "a newspaper kid" who just kept going.