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 life in lockdown, especially in the early days when we had no idea who would live and who would die. Five years later we are engaged
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 nonprofit in Kansas City, moved to San Francisco, rented a painting studio above a fortune cookie factory, and set up a drafting
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 creative careers, most of us tamped down our passion to create for decades. All that can change with a creative Renaissance in our sixties. Why
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 life has since erased—I was sure that people in their sixties had already lived their best years and were headed downhill. Like, they’d raised
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 toil of keeping house and raising children. Plus the greater supply of labor in the workforce led to lower real wages across the board. Soon
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 preparing food. Looking for an adult to accompany them, our eldest grandson finally implored, “Can Mimi take us?” He knows I’m always up for an adventure. So after I secured buy-in
