Hugh Delehanty is
the editor in chief of AARP
Publications and manages editorial oversight for AARP The Magazine,
AARP Bulletin, and other publications. He joined
AARP, the nation’s leading organization for 50+ Americans,
in 1999 as editor of its flagship publication, Modern
Maturity. The following year he was promoted to editorial
director and directed the launch of My Generation,
AARP’s award-winning magazine for baby boomers.
In January 2003, he supervised the merger of the two
publications into
AARP The Magazine, America’s largest magazine
with a circulation of 22 million. Under his direction, the
magazine has nearly doubled its readership and won several
honors, including Folio Editorial Excellence awards in 2002
and 2003.
Delehanty also oversees AARP Bulletin,
the nation’s largest circulation newspaper and, according
to an independent survey, one of the top-20 most influential
media outlets. In addition, he supervises Segunda Juventud,
AARP’s bilingual Hispanic publication, and NRTA Live
and Learn, the publication for AARP’s educator
community. This year Delehanty directed the launch of AARP
Books, which will publish eight titles next year in collaboration
with Sterling Publishing. The first book, which will appear
in May, will be My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices
of the Civil Rights Experience by Juan Williams.
Delehanty is a regular contributor on
The Today Show and has appeared frequently on NBC
Nightly News, CNN, Good Morning, America,
and other broadcasts. He also speaks extensively on baby
boomers, the media and other topics.
He is the co-author with famed NBA coach
Phil Jackson of the national bestseller Sacred Hoops:
Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior. The book,
which has sold more than 350,000 copies and been translated
into seven languages, chronicles Jackson’s lifelong
quest to bring enlightenment to the competitive world of
basketball. Interview Magazine calls it, “the
perfect antidote to the win-at-any-cost mentality of professional
sports, [which] reveals the spiritual ground from which
Jordan flies and suggests ways we all might soar with similar
grace.”
Before joining AARP, Delehanty
was the editor of Utne Reader, the award-winning
bi-monthly magazine known as the “alternative Reader’s
Digest.” He was also an editor at People,
Women’s Sports and Fitness,
and Sports Illustrated, where he was part of the
team that won consecutive National Magazine Awards for General
Excellence. A widely published magazine writer, he has also
been a visiting professor in American Studies at Carleton
College in Northfield, Minnesota, and a guest lecturer at
the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of
California, Berkeley.
