I write stories about older adults. My debut novel, Dakota Blues, won an award. I followed it with Middle Aged Crazy: Short Stories of Midlife and Beyond, and then Key Largo Blues, the sequel to Dakota Blues. All three feature the adult coming-of-age story. In the traditional COA, young people surmount obstacles in order to figure out who they are and get on with their lives. Often they fall in love, land a career, and start a family. But what happens then? After 50, we may have as many productive years left as it takes to raise kids.

That's what I write about.

Older people have a second coming-of-age to go through, and now the stakes and even higher. The clock is ticking, so we're on fire to make our time count. We have dreams. We lay out goals and objectives like anybody else. We start businesses. We cook up schemes. We fall in love. We throw the Hail Mary pass, risking everything, just like young people.

But here's where it gets interesting: on top of that, we face unique obstacles because of age, whether illness or death, or life-threatening heartache. Our characters deepen. We might decide to stop being doormats, or take a stand, or make the greatest sacrifice of our lives. All this, while our bodies and faces are changing, and society thinks we're a joke. That's the midlife coming-of-age story. As fascinating as the kids are, I think old peeps are even more interesting. We may not be as pretty, but we're more devious and complicated. And so are our stories.
  • California
  • JoinedDecember 31, 2013