About Jim Levy
Jim Levy was born in Chicago in 1940 and raised in Los Angeles, where his father practiced as a Freudian psychoanalyst. As a boy, he spent five summers in Taos, NM, which had a lasting impact on his life. He boarded for four years at The Thacher School in Ojai, California, earned nine varsity letters in track, basketball and soccer, then spent two years at Pomona College playing basketball. Influenced by the Beats, he rode freight trains up and down California and hitch hiked in Mexico and the Southwest. After a year in Europe, Levy enrolled at U.C. Berkeley and earned his B.A. in English and History and a certificate in secondary teaching.
After eight years of marriage to the woman who became Pema Chödrön, the Buddhist teacher and author, Levy began living in Arroyo Hondo in 1972 with Phaedra Greenwood, a writer with a son, Alexander. They had a daughter Sara in 1974 and were married in 1977.In 1978 he became executive director of the Harwood Foundation of the University of New Mexico. This became what was to be a thirty-five year career working as executive director for nonprofit organizations. He and Phaedra were divorced in 1994. For several years, Levy lived an unsettled life, living in Patzauro, Montreal, Spain, and California. He and Phaedra were reunited in 2003 in the house in Arroyo Hondo, where they continue to write books.
Throughout his life, Levy has written poetry, essays, stories, novels and memoirs, and at the age of 74, he began publishing his books.