What’s the story behind the story? What inspired you to write this book?
My daughter found the private notes I’d been keeping for years — the small, unglamorous observations I made every time I noticed my body or mind doing something new. She asked what they were, and when I explained, she said she’d love to have that kind of advance warning herself one day. I promised her I’d turn them into something she could actually read. This book is that promise kept.
If you had to pick theme songs for the main characters of your book, what would they be?
“Let It Go” (Disney, Frozen). I choose this for the feeling it captures: the sudden, unfamiliar freedom which resembles my retirement, having all the time in the world to do exactly as I please after a lifetime of obligation. It connects directly to Chapter 8, “Freedom Without Script,” where that same shift (control loosening, tension releasing) is one of the book’s emotional turns.
What’s your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?
I read nonfiction that takes apart a single big question for example in Deep History, Philosophical Anthropology or Sociology of Belief Systems. My reading interests focus on mythology, history, archaeology, and the intersection of gender and power in ancient societies. (Authors like Yuval Noah Harari, Riane Eisler, Merlin Stone) Aging Laid Bare is also nonfiction built around one central question. So in that sense my reading and writing overlap, I just turned the lens on myself instead of civilization or history.
What books are on your TBR pile right now?
Honestly, no pile. I read things right away rather than letting them stack up.
What’s next/in progress: I’m currently working across two other projects: a Viking series (Viking Goddesses and Viking Magic are published, Viking Stories is finished and in the queue), and folktale research — an analysis of ten global Sleeping Beauty variants, nearly done, and a larger collection of forty-five folktales worldwide featuring a sleeping heroine, about two-thirds complete.
What scene in your book was your favorite to write?
Without question, the closing tale, “The Marble Cat.” It let me say everything the rest of the book says directly, but through metaphor instead: the vain queen who can’t accept a single wrinkle, and everyone else who chooses honesty and kindness over vanity instead.
Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)
No desk, no typewriter. I write in a rocking chair (my version of knitting, I suppose), next to the coffee table, keyboard in my lap, a glass of water within reach. I’ve got a big TV set up as my computer display, and that’s what I write on.
If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?
Whatever the change is, when it happens to them, they’ll remember they already read about it here and recognize it for what it is instead of feeling blindsided or alone in it.