Candy’s Story

The year Candy was born, Elvis Presley released his first hit record, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl was published, and Soviet troops crushed rebellions in Poland and Hungary.

Growing up in a progressive and politically engaged family in Queens, NY, Candy witnessed the transformative events of the 1960s as a precocious and inquisitive young person. This particular intersection of biography and history sparked Candy’s sociological imagination, a superpower she has been using and strengthening throughout her life.

With a BA in Psychology and Communication (Queens College) and a master’s degree in Human Development (Teachers College, Columbia) Candy left New York in 1979 (with her then future- now ex-husband) and lived in New Hampshire for the next twenty-seven years.

Candy taught college, volunteered at her kids’ schools, served on boards, and did research, PR, and development for child and family-oriented businesses and nonprofits.

She also moderated focus groups, hosted a talk radio show, and became a serious amateur photographer. And she earned a doctorate in Sociology, focusing on the nexus of family, gender, media, and culture change.

Candy brought her skills as a communicator, researcher, and analyst (of data and culture) to all these endeavors, fueled always by a deep commitment to social justice, learning, and the realization of human potential.

In early 2013 Candy began researching and writing a book documenting the Beatles profound, lasting impact on baby boomers and the culture, a book she’d been thinking about for years. Candy concluded—repeatedly, over several decades—that this much needed book didn’t yet exist (among the thousands of Beatles books out there, with more coming every year) because she had to write it.  

Her highly acclaimed Beatleness: How the Beatles and their Fans Remade the World (Arcade, 2014; 2016), is the only sociocultural analysis of the interplay between boomers, their pop culture, and the sociopolitical upheavals of the 60s. Candy has also written for The Huffington Post, Next Avenue, Culture Sonar, and has contributed to academic volumes on the Beatles.

On her sixtieth birthday, Candy gifted herself the decision to stop coloring her hair. A few months later, the Trump era began. Candy felt devastated and adrift.  Nevertheless, she persisted.

Candy wrote articles and engaged in various types of activism. She consumed lots of news, designed gardens, read voraciously, wrote, spent time with her children and grandsons, talked with lots of people, and went for daily walks, trying to “figure out” her next chapter.

The answer was not to be “figured out.” Rather, it emerged through a series of coincidences, or synchronicities, beginning in August 2020.

Candy’s response to these occurrences released creative energy for several projects that align her unique perspective, values, and skill set with what the moment calls for.