A Pandemic Thanksgiving Memorial My mother died on Pandemic Thanksgiving. She spent the last two years of her life in hospice, in a nursing home, and most of the last year of her life cut off from family and visitors. She did not die of the virus. She was blessed to have care staff who moved into the facility and locked themselves away from their own families to keep my mother and the other residents
The Fabulous Orgasmic Life of Betty Dodson Betty Dodson was a sexual pioneer who believed that in order to be truly equal, women must be independent from men for their sexual satisfaction. She is famous for her trailblazing work empowering women through masturbation, including her book, Sex for One, and her many hands-on workshops. “The Pleasure is Ours,” an episode of The Goop Lab that features Betty and her business partner Carlin Ross, was filmed
Forever 51 The Menopausal Vampire I ran across the new vampire novel Forever 51 The Menopausal Vampire in a list of newly published books online. I’ve now had hot flashes for a quarter of a century, so of course I was intrigued by the premise of a vampire in eternal menopause. What would a menopausal woman with superpowers be like? And why aren’t we all writing about her? I was even more intrigued when I read
Dare to Dream Madam Vice President We live in history every day, and some days that truth is crystal clear. As I write this it has just been announced that Kamala Devi Harris, a 56-year-old woman of African American and Indian American ancestry, is Vice President-Elect of the United States. She will be the first woman, the first African American, and the first person of Southeast Asian descent to hold that office. I cannot think
And Now the Days of Writerly Excess When October has come and gone, when your costume is back in the box and your Jack O’Lantern has grinned its last grin, it’s time for that annual festival of writerly excess, National Novel Writing Month. If you have ever struggled with your Inner Critic, if she insists that you either formulate the perfect sentence or forget this ridiculous notion of being a writer, give your Critic
A Week of Nobel Queens What a week for older women! Poet Louise Gluck, 77, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.” Gluck is a professor at Yale who previously won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Her lifetime of work includes twelve volumes of poetry and several collections of essays on poetry. One of her best known works is
