Peter Y. Sussman is a retired journalist and author. He was an editor at the San Francisco Chronicle for 30 years. His first book was Committing Journalism: The Prison Writings of Red Hog (W.W. Norton), co-authored with prison writer Dannie M. Martin. He subsequently edited Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford (Knopf). He has won numerous local and national journalism awards, most of them for his First Amendment and journalism ethics advocacy.

In retirement, Sussman has worked with several nonprofit organizations in addition to CIL. He has served for more than five years as the journalism advisor for Street Spirit, the local homeless newspaper, and spent more than 10 years on the board of the Human Rights Defense Center. He is active in Ashby Village and other community groups. CIL is the first disability organization with which he has become involved since he became disabled more than a dozen years ago. He has also become a passionate photographer in recent years, with a major solo exhibit of his work in 2022.

Sussman has lived in Berkeley for 60 years and is married to retired community healthcare executive and consultant Patrica Carson Sussman. He is the father of three grown daughters and the proud grandfather of seven wunderkinder.