Overview

"Women over 80 have done and are doing important, beautiful, and amazing things. The idea for this book came about as friends sat around talking about what it meant to be turning 80, wondering what other women felt, what their lives were like. A couple of us had the idea of collecting accounts and putting together a book. So off went calls for submissions in various literary sources, and we were amazed at the response. Women in their 80s and 90s from all over the country and abroad sent us stories about their joys, sorrows, adventures, love lives, losses, memories, and their aches and pains. There was sadness. There was humor. There was advice. There was so much! And we received artwork as well, some of which is included. The title, When A Woman Tells the Truth, is part of a quote by the writer Adrienne Rich. The full sentence is ""When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her."" It is in her landmark book On Lies, Secrets, and Silence, published by W.W. Norton & Co., 1979."

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9781944497095

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"Glimpses of rich lives, lived long, with roots in the past but still growing towards the future: when older women tell their truth, it looks like this. -Laurie R. King, ""New York Times"" bestselling author of 30 novels including ""The Beekeeper's Apprentice"" These poets, prose writers, and artists share thoughts on how to live. Over and over, they choose art, resilience, and truth-from turning the mulch to politics to loneliness, to desire, from children to grandchildren, from re-reading books to losing words. Addressing age, inspiration, experience, sexuality, physicality, and life, this collection provides perspective and wisdom for all readers, and honors, as poet Nellie Wong says: 'Remembering living a witness in / Story in unhurried song.' -Ellen Bass, Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets, author of ""Indigo"" I found ""When a Woman Tells the Truth"" a cornucopia of delights that should become your new companion. This book is to be read slowly, over the years, taking time to savor the pieces one at a time. You will find joy, beauty, and wisdom throughout. It will help you make meaning out of the losses, challenges, and surprises of growing old. -Katharine Esty, psychologist and author of ""Eightysomethings: A Practical Guide to Letting Go, Aging Well and Finding Unexpected Happiness"" Oh, when elder women tell the truth they open doors to the mostly unacknowledged wisdom of half our species. What's inspiring is more than their intelligence as they face health and awareness problems, it's their attitudes. In the multitude of stories and poems, such variety and range of issues and strategies. This book shows us women being real about life. Together they are the village elder, two hundred and fifty thousand years old, who knows everything. This is the twenty-first century version of that elder, and this book will change your life. Who needs to read it? Everyone. -Clive Matson, author: ""Let the Crazy Child Write!"" and ""Hello, Paradise. Paradise, Goodbye"" We hear a lot about aging these days, but rarely from the people who know it best. ""When a Woman Tells the Truth"" brings together the poetry, prose, and art of more than eighty women over eighty. Here are poets, professors, Zen buddhists, theater directors, French teachers, jewelry artists, union organizers, midwives, hospice workers, and more. These compelling dispatches from the land of eighty and beyond are by turns loving, funny, heartbreaking, sly, tender, and angry. Through it all, the light of great and small joys shines through, along with the fierce clarity of seeing the present, each day, for what it is. -Kathryn Chetkovich, author of ""Friendly Fire"" This unique anthology of writing by women over 80 is a refresher course in keeping feisty, funny, and fit-despite late-life challenges to all three... this wide-ranging and racy anthology belies any notion that women over 80 are too old to kick butt, dispense hard-earned truths, and make us laugh so hard we pee. Catch a ride with these women. But hold on tight. -David Allen Sullivan, author of ""Black Butterflies Over Baghdad"", Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz"

Author Information

Dena Taylor holds an M.S.W. from Rutgers University, worked as a social worker in London. She has co-hosted the annual In Celebration of the Muse in Santa Cruz, California with Wilma Marcus Chandler. She is still editing, but now retired from Cabrillo Community College on the California coast. Wilma Marcus Chandler has been a theatre and dance educator, choreographer, director, writer and past chair of Theatre Arts at Cabrillo College, Aptos, California. A proud New Yorker and Bennington College alumna, her many books on scene study, stage combat, and directing were published by Smith and Kraus, Inc.. She has produced the National Festival of Women's Theatre; the annual In Celebration of the Muse along with Dena Taylor; the Jewish women's readers' theatre company, My Kin Talk; the 8 Tens @ 8 short play festival; and over 100 productions in the Monterey Bay Area over the years. She lives in Santa Cruz with her husband, the writer John Chandler.

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