Helen Gurley Brown has been a motivated writer from the start. At age fourteen, she wrote a letter to the President about her sister, Mary, who suffered from polio. The letter was so persuasive and moving that he started communication with Mary, greatly lifting her spirits. Brown studied at Texas State College before moving to New York, and entering advertising. She began as a secretary, and it was not until she won a contest through Glamour magazine that she was invited to write copy. During this time, she married David Brown and wrote her best-selling book, Sex and the Single Girl, a novel promoting the belief that young working women were independent and capable of all things. In response, Brown received mail from all over the country, and she spent night after night answering letters. One evening, David suggested that she create a magazine in which she could answer all of the letters openly. This idea was realized when Brown was invited to revive the magazine Cosmopolitan in 1965. For the next thirty years, she served as editor-in-chief, creating the ultimate image of the "Cosmo Girl," a successful, independent woman. In addition, she has published several books including Sex and the Office, Outrageous Opinions, and Having It All.
