My Debut Novel – and I’m 72 And never once has a publishing professional asked about my age There are a few, vanishingly rare, incidents in life when the stars line up in such a way that you begin to doubt the evidence of your own senses. As in, I’ll wake up soon, because this [… … | Continue reading
Adjusting to the Now, Over and Over Again Last week I attended a conference in Santa Fe, Quest 2026, all about vivid aging for older women. One of the speakers was Kat Miller, a counselor and pro-aging activist who talked about falling in love with impermanence (“Crazy, right?” s … | Continue reading
The Gray New Deal My first published novel, The Gray New Deal, is appearing as I turn 63. In the novel, seven seniors who shared a college co-op in Austin fifty years ago reunite to create another co-op. Together, this intentional community navigates Trump 1.0 and the first years … | Continue reading
Artificial? Yes. Intelligence? Maybe. Years ago my son bought the house Marion Zimmer Bradley owned at the end of her life. She lived there in community with the writers who ghost wrote many of her later novels. Those books, published under Zimmer’s name to take advantage of her … | Continue reading
How Can an Old Biddy Become an Author? I’m an old biddy who released her first book at the age of seventy-one. I want to share my story of becoming a traditionally published author of four humorous nonfiction books after retiring from a forty-year career. We older women need to … | Continue reading
Let’s Shine Our Light: Crone Authors Together The issue of "stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest" sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices. —Brene Brown, Daring Greatly We live in a time of mas … | Continue reading
My new boyfriend is AI Some women love their vibrators. I love a different type of digital companion…AI. I’m not a total nerd-girl. I adore flesh-and-blood men too, but my current tech toys and techniques are vital to my work and personal life, giving me autonomy, entertainment, … | Continue reading
In Praise of Color Deanna Raybourn’s terrific novel Killers of a Certain Age starts with the retirement cruise of a trio of crone assassins. As a special surprise, their erstwhile boss has hired a younger killer to bump them off mid-cruise. Once the women overcome their hitman an … | Continue reading
Setting Lights the Way I love talking to authors about where their ideas come from, and I’m fascinated by the small seeds that blossom over time into a full-fledged novel. In workshops, I hear about starting the writing process with a character in mind (a nurse, grieving the deat … | Continue reading
When Zebras Meet Managing Under-Researched Conditions I’ve written before about the old medical school mantra, “When you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras.” In other words, consider the common diagnoses first. Sounds reasonable; but keep in mind that the saying originat … | Continue reading
It’s Our Time! Women 50 & Beyond Need Our Own Mature-Age College Pathway Older women in Australia, the UK and the US came of age when women had limited access to higher education (thus limiting our access to higher paid careers). Providing a ready pathway to complete our educatio … | Continue reading
Crafting My Book of Essays Let’s say you have been writing essays for years. Might be blogs; might be Substack essays; might be short nonfiction in magazines. Perhaps writing essays was your primary goal, or you may have intended these pieces as publicity to lure readers to your … | Continue reading
Marriage: The Business of Romance Many of us grew up with firm ideas about love and marriage: Charming Princes coming to our rescue, “playing house” with our friends. Yet our divorce rate is over 40%. While our expectations of marriage do not match reality, the money we spend on … | Continue reading
Had to Get this Off My Chest. I can picture her white uniform, and the cap from her Chicago nursing school pinned to her dark, curly hair. The year is 1953. She is 27, a floor nurse at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla. She’s in motion all day, bringing medications, lifting and turnin … | Continue reading
My Lusty Encore Career Sexual pleasure is a human treasure. This revelation did not come to me as some blinding flash of the obvious. From getting my period at eleven to being post-menopausal at 55, struggling with vaginal dryness and lack of desire until I was in my sixties, bre … | Continue reading
Vampire as Crone Metaphor Five years ago I had terrific fun writing my first novel. Brilliant Charming Bastard is the story of three women scientists in their sixties who join forces for smart revenge when they discover they are dating the same lying dilettante (who is stealing t … | Continue reading
Dreams Never Expire Do you remember your childhood dreams? Not the ones you pursued because society expected you to work a good-paying job while marrying and raising a family. The ones that came before, back in the days when your backyard landscaping served as the depths of a jun … | Continue reading
A Crone’s Journey Fifteen years ago a cyst consumed most of my right ovary. I had it removed. Not long after, I saw a new doctor who looked at my records and said, “I see you are missing an ovary.” “Not really,” I said. “I hardly ever think about it.” Nor do I miss my […] | Continue reading
A Crone’s Quest Fifteen years ago a cyst consumed most of my right ovary. I had it removed. Not long after, I saw a new doctor who looked at my records and said, “I see you are missing an ovary.” “Not really,” I said. “I hardly ever think about it.” Nor do I miss my […] | Continue reading
Older Women’s Stories: It’s the Creative Age Life slows down, just a little. Family and work aren’t as demanding. More time, more space, and you might discover yourself again. It’s a journey. There are definitely left turns, some detours, sometimes a one-way street, on the road t … | Continue reading
Over Fifty? The Diet Industry Wants You. If you are not yet following Debra Benfield at Aging with Vitality and Body Liberation, you’re missing out. Deb is a trained nutritionist who offers sage advice about loving our bodies as they are. In her July 2025 newsletter she breaks do … | Continue reading
Age is not Just a Number One of the things that distresses me about ageism is the insidious ways it finds to undermine and disrespect the natural process of human ageing. Western culture, with its deeply embedded ageist thinking, conjures up platitudes and catchphrases that any s … | Continue reading
Grow Radical with Me, The Best is Yet to Be Women grow radical with age. One day an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the earth. —Gloria Steinem I wouldn’t call us “quiet,” but we Crones sure are busy. That gathering of millions for No Kings Day was mostly olders, a … | Continue reading
Retirement is Another Lifetime When I announced my retirement there was a distinct divide in the reactions from my colleagues. Some were happy for me and a little jealous, while others told me I would be back to work in six months. This last statement puzzled me until I dug deepe … | Continue reading
Taking Our Space Space is essential in life just as space between logs is essential for fire. Space rekindles attraction between longtime partners. Taking space between tasks revives us. And giving our grown children space enables them to develop their own lives. I don’t know abo … | Continue reading
Invisible to Invincible: The Next Crone Age Imagine this scenario: You’re walking down the street on a warm spring day, enjoying the shop windows full of artfully displayed wares. People smile and nod. Some wave. Some pause to admire you as you pass, maybe one or two even whistle … | Continue reading
Seller’s Remorse Truly, even our own front door is a great threshold, no matter how familiar the worlds within and without may be. There is a new world behind every door. —Rev. Dr. Molly Housh Gordon We bought our house in North Carolina on the first anniversary of our first date … | Continue reading
Women in Artificial Intelligence On December 19, 2024, having finished my holiday shopping, I was relaxing by browsing Substack articles about one of my passions, AI (artificial intelligence) (Yes, that’s relaxing. Proud data geek here!). I came across a post by an author I won’t … | Continue reading
Women and Artificial Intelligence On December 19, 2024, having finished my holiday shopping, I was relaxing by browsing Substack articles about one of my passions, AI (artificial intelligence) (Yes, that’s relaxing. Proud data geek here!). I came across a post by an author I won’ … | Continue reading
Crisis Journal 2025 When the Pandemic began in 2020, I started a journal of extraordinary days that morphed into an online community where writers shared their daily thoughts. The value lay not so much in the final product as in the act of capturing the gritty reality of daily li … | Continue reading
Tips for Traveling Your Creative Path at Any Age In 1977 at 28, I decided to make my way as an artist and writer. I knew that to succeed required more control of my time than I’d had in previous jobs. I quit my position as Program and Communications Director at an educational non … | Continue reading
The Creative Crone Renaissance – Return to play We began our lives as scientists and artists, exploring our world and engaging in play. Then school prepared us for that long stretch of years when we worked, cared for others, and kept our home life going. While some of us found cr … | Continue reading
In Praise of Older Romance One of the reasons I write romances with protagonists in their sixties is to debunk the myth that the older we grow the less alive we are. I understand this presumption because when I was in my twenties—back when I knew everything with a certainty real … | Continue reading
The Fear of Freedom Defining Our Goals in Later Life We spend much of our adult lives racing around like chickens with their heads cut off. Sadly, the entry of most women into full-time employment, which happened in our lifetimes, did not mean that spouses took on half the unpaid … | Continue reading
Becoming a Cool Grandma On a sunny morning last Thanksgiving, my grandchildren and their cousins were getting restless. And who could blame them? They’d discovered the kid-sized buckets and shovels hidden in a closet, the beach beckoned, and their parents were busy chatting and p … | Continue reading
The Magical Power of Life Review December is a busy yet contemplative time. We are down to the essentials. Outside our windows the branches are bare, while inside the house, the packages are shipped and the cupboards empty as we ready for holiday travel. The New Year is upon us w … | Continue reading
Getting Through the Tough Times with a Trip to Evergreen I don’t know if it’s possible to break the dashboard of a Mini Cooper, but I gave it a good try. The day after the 2024 Presidential election I was disappointed and stressed about the future. I was sitting in the driver’s s … | Continue reading
The Unfettered Joy of Trying Something New Here in the Interregnum, we don’t know where we are going and aren’t sure how we got here. That makes it tough to decide how to spend our time. Cycling through all five stages of grief at intervals is tempting, along with survivalist pla … | Continue reading
Where did it all begin —Vinspire Publishing A little over twenty years ago, Vinspire Publishing began with a different name at a kitchen table with four women who wanted to bring back Retro Romances. We all watched movies from the early years, and we wanted to celebrate that in o … | Continue reading
10 Things to Know When You Turn Sixty “Aging happens, because we cannot stop it, and it is not what we feared.” –Victoria Smith, Hags On the morning of my sixtieth birthday party, my firstborn and I walked to a breakfast cafe in Berkeley. “It’s funny,” I said. “I don’t feel old. … | Continue reading
Surviving Overwhelm: Context, Impositions, Self-Care and Genetic Flaws I am almost always overwhelmed and the ‘Big O’ is now my middle name. I have begun to accept the suchness of my particular modus-operandi. To give some clarity, let me confess that my personal biggie is that I … | Continue reading
On Taking Space (Inner and Outer) In her poem, “Fire,” poet Judy Brown reminds us that fuel is not the only thing a fire needs; a fire also burns because of space between the logs. Space enables fire in the same way that space rekindles attraction between longtime partners. Space … | Continue reading
It Started With a Coffin In the late nineties when the book and movie of The Garden of Good and Evil were all the rage, my husband and I traveled to Savannah to see the locations in the book. We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast on one of Savannah’s famous squares. As bed and […] | Continue reading
The Power of Late Bloomers The attempts to disempower an American woman unfold across her lifetime. She is sexualized as a young girl, loses her reproductive freedom as a young woman, takes on the “Second Shift” as a mother, and becomes invisible after menopause. Rendering women … | Continue reading
Living The Dream All my life, I dreamed of literary success. I wanted to write and publish a blockbuster novel and enjoy the life of the successful author. The universe had other plans, so I set the dream aside and applied myself to earning a paycheck. While rearing my son, climb … | Continue reading
Proscriptions based on gender are illusory — that’s what I learned from women bronc riders This spring, my historical novel, Sunny Gale, was published by Pronghorn Press. Sunny Gale is a fictionalization of the era of women’s professional rodeo from roughly 1895 to the early 1930 … | Continue reading
Welcome to Amsterdam In the early years of raising my son who has cerebral palsy, I subscribed to a magazine for parents of children with disabilities. The magazine was full of information about dealing with schools and physicians, and the tone was resolutely upbeat. One particul … | Continue reading
3 Ways to Report an Adverse Medication Reaction I recently spoke with a woman over 65 who was recovering from a serious adverse reaction to a prescription drug. She notified her doctor and stopped taking the medication, but she wanted to do more. She was concerned that in the fut … | Continue reading