Beth Witrogen McLeod is an author, journalist, speaker and consultant on caregiving, end-of-life issues and renewal at midlife, especially for women. Beth is one of our featured experts at the Empowering Caregivers with one of the largest collections of her articles She is a double Pulitzer Prize nominee, and has won many national and regional awards for her work. She has written for Good Housekeeping, SELF, Family Circle, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. Her latest book is Caregiving: The Spiritual Journey of Love, Loss, and Renewal Beth On PBS More About Beth Articles By Beth

Beth Witrogen McLeod is an award winning journalist, author, speaker and consultant on caregiving and spiritual aging issues. Her expertise grew out of personal experience caring for her parents who were simultaneously terminally ill 1,200 miles away in the early 90's.With a father dying of a rare form of cancer and a mother with Lou Gehrig's disease and dementia, McLeod learned first hand about the traumas and blessings of this mid-life rite of passage.

With the desire to share her experience and help others through the caregiving challenge. She turned her experiences into a passion for public service, first writing and producing a seven-part award-winning newspaper series, "The Caregivers," for the San Francisco Examiner in 1995. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She developed a weekly column for The Examiner that often appeared on the New York Times Syndicated Web site. Honors for the series included National Hospice Organization, Pew Charitable Trusts, American Legion Auxiliary, Society of Professional Journalists and many regional and local service organizations.

After that, she continued to investigate the growing phenomenon of adult children caring for aging parents. She left The Examiner to write her book, "Caregiving: The Spiritual Journey of Love, Loss and Renewal" (John Wiley & Sons, May 1999), which has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. Her articles on elder care and related issues have been published in Good Housekeeping, SELF, Family Circle, Intuition, Cooking Light, Take Care!, Health and the Noetic Science Review.

She has led an on-line caregiving support chat for five years. She now lectures nationwide to riase the consciousness and awareness in aging issues from political and spiritual aspects as well as on the practical and emotional aspects of family caregiving. She is a columnist and consultant for ThirdAge.com and WebMD, Carethere.com, MyLifePath.com and continues to write a column for The Examiner called "Focus on Aging." She is a contributing writer for Aging Today. She has worked with the American Society on Aging/National Alliance for Caregiving to build an on-line caregiving materials resource center, and has been featured in interviews with the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Christian Science Monitor, Prevention, Money and Walking, among others.

Beth taught a course on caring for aging parents through the University of California Extension system her course is still offered on-line through ThirdAge.com.

In August 1999, she was interviewed by Katie Couric for the "Today" show's "Forever Young" segment. In August 1999, "Caregiving" will be published as an "E-book." It has been accepted into the Prevention Book Club. The paperback version was released in 2000.

The Women's International Center presented the Living Legacy Award 2000 to Beth Witrogen McLeod in enthusiastic acknowledgement of her contributions to those who are empowered by her words.

Her commitment to helping family caregivers negotiate the complex medical, legal, and health care systems has grown greatly over the years and she is considered to be one of the finest, gifted people in the field of caregiving.

Beth is now focusing on the broader spiritual issues of living fully in the second half of life, including optimal health, inner healing, and self-renewal.

Empowering Caregivers is proud and honored to have Beth as one of our Featured Experts here at the site as a contributing author.