The Gray New Deal
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 of the pandemic. They’re a diverse […]
Artificial? Yes. Intelligence? Maybe.
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 established readership, really did literally take advantage […]
How Can an Old Biddy Become an Author?
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 tell our truths. We have […]
Let’s Shine Our Light: Crone Authors Together
Let’s Shine Our Light: Crone Authors Together The issue of “stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest” sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.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 massive change, including huge changes […]
Setting Lights the Way
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 death of her nephew), and one of […]
Crafting My Book of Essays
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 books. But eventually these shorter works begin […]
