Vicki Larson is a longtime award-winning journalist and co-author of The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels. The lifestyles editor, columnist, and writer at the Marin Independent Journal, Larsons writing can also be found in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian, Aeon, Medium, and HuffPost among other places. Larson has also been a guest on several radio and television shows, including Minnesota Public Radio, the BBC, Canadas The Morning Show and The Social, as well as podcasts, including The Femsplainers and Solo: The Single Persons Guide to a Remarkable Life. She is the mother of two young men and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
A book that busts the tired and harmful narratives about aging as a woman required me to rely heavily on the work of numerous researchers, authors, and journalists, as well as women who graciously shared with me their own thoughts and experiences. I am incredibly grateful to them and give credit to them not only in the pages of this book, but also in my bibliography.
My entre into writing books might never have happened if Hilary Howard, of the New York Times, had not mentioned me to her good friend Sharon Bowers of Miller Bowers Griffin Literary Mgmt. Sharon believed in my first book, which was co-written, enough to become our literary agent, and kept believing in me even when I pitched her numerous off-the-wall book ideas.
I am indebted and full of gratitude to the staff and editors at Rowman & Littlefield and especially to Suzanne Staszak-Silva, who believed there was room for yet another book on midlife and older women.
A huge thank you to all The Lovelies, women I have known for decades, for their kindness, honesty, encouragement, support, shoulders to cry on, and all the years of laughter and friendship. I could not have survived without them. A special thanks to Vincanne Adams, an esteemed scholar, author of numerous books, a sharp and honest critic, and a dear friend who read one of my chapters early on and gave it a thumbs up.
Im indebted to my late parents, Trude and Bernard, who years ago didnt say, We told you so, but instead helped me get back on my feet after my first marriage ended, and my late journalism professor, Alan Prince, who helped shape me as a journalist.
Finally, a huge thanks to my children, Nash and Kit, who continue to open my heart every day.
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Baker, Tamara A., NiCole T. Buchanan, Chivon A. Mingo, Rosalyn Roker, Candace S. Brown. Reconceptualizing Successful Aging Among Black Women and the Relevance of the Strong Black Woman Archetype. The Gerontologist, 55, 1 (2015): 5157. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnu105.
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