Edited by Sharyn Skeeter Reviewed by Victoria Starr Marshall What’s Next: Short Fiction in Time of Change It’s a summer tradition, isn’t it, to set aside well-wrought literature and reach for a trashy novel or light fiction to carry us away? Or maybe not. If good writing about people and situations that are, perhaps, a little out of your cultural lane interests you, then What’s Next: Short Fiction in Time of Change should be part of your summer reading list. What’s Next? is an anthology of concise, thoughtful, contemporary American fiction that carries us away with stories of people contending ..read more

BY KAREN WHITE-WALKER I give up! For somebody who’s in her advancing years, I still struggle and strive to cling to society’s niceties, but what do you get? Embarrassment and mortification! My writing career has afforded me a few privileges that maybe I otherwise wouldn’t have been exposed to. I mean, like the opportunity to interview ‘people in high places.” Hence, I’ve wondered and scrutinized them as to why THEY were selected and not the rest of us. Believe me, we’re the lucky ones, for under all that hoopla, I sometimes can sense in them a loneliness, a longing to ..read more

BY STEPHEN SINCLAIR A friend of mine, a young man who always seems optimistic and full of life, recently told me he was feeling “blah” and kind of “down.” When I asked what he thought was the cause of this, he said he didn’t know, that he hadn’t ever felt this way. I asked him several questions hoping to get an understanding of what he was experiencing. It seemed he’d lost interest in the activities that normally brought him joy. After talking some more it became apparent that he was experiencing malaise, the cause of which was being overly busy and not taking time for solitude and rest ..read more

Understanding care options is crucial as we age. BY FRED NYSTROM Most of us reading this magazine have likely passed the conventional age of retirement and are feeling positive about our future years. There’s a lot to feel positive about. Some of our current commonalities may include: We’re retired or have switched to less-demanding work. We are healthy, active, and socially engaged. We are married or in a stable relationship, and the kids are (hopefully) out of the house. Ninety percent of us want to age in place in our own home for as long as possible. The flipside is that things can chang ..read more

BY LARRY MOSS    Old age, despite its numerous negatives, does have its benefits. You just have to get a handle on what they are and how to use them to your advantage. Think of them as “perks” with gray hair—a collection of benefits reserved for people living through their third act. While there are many to choose from, I am going to focus on what I consider to be the most valuable—the inalienable right to say “no.” That’s right, the statute of limitations on having to say “yes” has expired. Simply, we have earned the right to decline, reject, turn down, and flat-out refuse to d ..read more

Did you know? According to a report from the Alliance for Lifetime Income, approximately 4.1 million Americans are poised to turn 65 this year and every year through 2027? Dubbed by experts as “peak 65” or the “silver tsunami,” this figure represents the largest surge of retirement-age Americans in history. Statistics indicate that 2024 will be a record-breaking year for retirement in the U.S., with an average of 11,000 Americans a day expected to celebrate their 65th birthday from now until December. How old are you? Louise Aronson, physician, writer and author of Elderhood: Redefining Agin ..read more

BY ANN HEDREEN From Judith Mayotte’s floor-to-ceiling, south-facing window on the 6th floor of the Skyline Retirement Community on Seattle’s First Hill, you can see the raised-bed gardens on the ground below. They are the work of a group of Skyline residents who call themselves the “Late Bloomers.” Mayotte enjoys looking down on the garden, quiet though it is on this February day. It’s one of the many things she appreciates about Skyline, where she has lived for six years. But Mayotte is no late bloomer. She’s more of a continual bloomer. After a long career of working on refugee issues as a s ..read more

BY SUZI SCHULTZ GOLD I was playing pickleball with an eclectic group of adults who crossed the spectrum of ages and abilities. We met in a beginning adult education class called Pickleball Basics. The group was social and, for the more athletic, pickleball checked the recommended “exercise” box. After a morning of dinks and drop shots, winners and losers, Melinda proposed we collect money “for a gift card to DoorDash” for a player having surgery. “Just Venmo me whatever you want to contribute,” she says. Venmo? The money wasn’t an issue, but I asked, “Doesn’t anybody write checks anymore?” She ..read more

BY SUZIE SCHULTZ GOLD “Bucket List?” The expression was puzzling. When first heard it, I envisioned one of those functional plastic orange Home Depot pails filled with common household supplies, everything from spackle to picture hooks. The catchy phrase was coined in 2007, popularized in a celebrated film starring well-known actors Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. In the movie, The Bucket List, two terminally ill men break away from a cancer ward and go off on a road trip with a wish list of things to do before they die. The trendy idea to compile a list of experiences, things to see and ac ..read more

BY ANDREA DREISSEN I have a death wish: That we may all leave this world knowing how much we mattered, that everyone hears their own eulogy and can savor how it feels to be radically seen. And that, as a result, we can all live into the legacies that others see possible in us before it’s too late. After all, why should eulogies only be for dead people? Why are the truest feelings said about loved ones when they can’t hear, savor, or bask in them? And how might we honor all those around us who are very much alive? My term for these “living eulogies” is Gracenotes®. Like musical gracenotes, they ..read more