Holly Peterson is an American producer, journalist and novelist. The daughter of Peter George Peterson, she was a contributing editor for Newsweek magazine, an editor-at-large for Talk magazine and an Emmy award-winning producer for ABC News, where she covered global politics. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Manny.
After college, she worked in Washington, D.C. as a radio producer for the political consulting firm Squier/Eskew run by Robert Squier and Carter Eskew. She then moved back to New York where she was hired by ABC News and where she remained a producer of both Primetime Live with Diane Sawyer and Sam Donaldson and World News Tonight with Peter Jennings for a dozen years, winning a National Press Club Award and a television news Emmy Award for Outstanding Coverage of a Single Breaking News event for the 1991 coup that dissolved the USSR during Christmas of that year. She then worked for Tina Brown at Talk magazine in the role of editor-at-large where she penned a column called "Money Talks" and published several long oral histories. Peterson worked as contributing editor at Newsweek and wrote several pieces, a cover on Oprah Winfrey and several packages on women and leadership. She left the magazine in 2007. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She serves on the board of trustees of The Children's Storefront, an independent school in Harlem. She is on the board of trustees of the Studio Museum in Harlem and New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Writing
Aside from Newsweek, she has written for The Daily Beast, The New York Times, Avenue, Town and Country, ModernLuxury.com, The Beach blog of ModernLuxury.com, Talk, and Hamptons magazines, Departures, Elle Decor, Vogue Living, Talk Magazine, Talk Profiles, Beach Magazine, Plum Magazine, Hamptons Magazine, Manhattan Magazine, New York Social Diary, Her first novel The Manny, a satire of the lives of wealthy people in New York City, quickly arose to the New York Times best seller list in July 2007. Her second novel, The Idea of Him was published in 2014 by Harper Collins. It is another work of social satire based on the high powered New Yorkers who came from nothing and made fortunes. It is also a love story of a woman who is trying to figure out if she is in love with the man or just the idea of him. In June 2016, Peterson released Smoke and Fire, published by Assouline. The book contains over 60 recipes and 100 photographs featuring outdoor entertaining ideas. In May 2017, Peterson released It Happens in the Hamptons published by William Morrow Paperbacks. In the Hamptons, the everyday people are as complicated and fascinating as the millionaires.
Personal life
Peterson married investment banker Richard A. Kimball Jr. in 1994. She and Kimball were divorced in 2009.
