To hear a recent interview I did with Jan M. Flynn for the Crow’s Feet Podcast, listen here
In my seventies, I have become a writer and poet…
At seventy, I self-published a memoir, Dear Milly. At 74, I had my first poetry chapbook, Not All Are Weeping, was published by Main Street Rag, and also self-published a book of poetry and art, Catching Fireflies, with my friend, Argy Nestor. This year, at 76, Kelsay Books will publish my first full book of poetry, South Jersey Sand. I have had five personal essays published in various books and journals, and over 350 stories on the Medium platform. I have been paid for some of these, making me a professional writer. This is a lifelong dream. Who would have thought I’d finally get around to it in my seventies?
Beginnings
I was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, raised in Galloway Township, and graduated from Oakcrest High School in southern New Jersey. I attended Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA, and graduated from Stockton University in Galloway, NJ, in 1974 with degrees in Philosophy, English Literature, and (almost) music. After that, I pursued a PhD program in Philosophy at Temple University for a year. I taught piano to local children and adults in the 70s and 80s, had a catering business, “Jean’s in the Kitchen,” from 1980-1992, and then went to graduate school at Rutgers Camden to obtain my master’s Degree in Social Work. Since 1996, I have worked as a therapist and counselor in New Jersey for five years, and then, when our family moved to Maine, in Augusta, Maine, for five years. For the past 17 years, I have had a private psychotherapy practice in Gardiner, Maine. During the pandemic, I packed up and moved my office home to Washington, Maine. Now at 76, I have retired from Social Work to write and do whatever else all this extra time permits. I am very grateful for any time I have left to do all of this.
Dear Milly
On my seventieth birthday in 2019, I decided to write and self-publish a memoir about our parents’ World War II romance, Dear Milly. At the time, my Mom was in her nineties, and I wrote this book for her. The intricacies of formatting and adding pictures to text were a bit beyond me. But after the writing was finished, I forged ahead and published a book on Amazon Kindle that I was able to have printed and give to her. You can still order it on Amazon. She spent the remaining years of her life rereading our family’s life story. I am so happy to have given her that book in time for her to enjoy it that I won’t apologize for some of the odd empty spaces and strange formatting near the end of it.
Medium and Crow’s Feet: Life as we Age
After that, I looked for a way to write and publish things and found the platform Medium. Since 2018, I have posted over 350 stories on Medium. It was there that I found the Crows Feet publication and got to know its founder, Nancy Peckenham. After a few years, Nancy decided to see what she could do to make Crows Feet more than a publication on Medium. In January of 2022, she held a meeting, invited a bunch of like-minded people, including me, and we all decided to begin producing a podcast (whatever that was). Crows feet: life as we age is now a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that produces essays and podcasts about aging well. To date, we have published 70 podcasts. We rotate hosts among our group, and have become a team of supportive, cooperative friends who now know a lot more about podcasts than we did in 2022.
Poetry
I have been writing and collecting poetry since childhood but never showed it to anyone. Recently, I learned how valuable it could be to join a group for feedback and support for my writing. I have taken several courses and written many poems and had my first poem accepted for publication. Then, in 2022 I put together a chapbook and achieved a lifelong goal: I am having a poetry book published in 2023.
Here is a video of me discussing the book and reading a few poems. I’m off in a new direction again.
If you’d like to read about the publisher, Main Street Rag, see my author page, or purchase the book, go here.
Here is what reviewer Dana Wilde had to say
I wrote Dear Milly for my mother. I rushed to get it into book form so she could enjoy it while she was still able. I am so grateful that I did. Milly read her book dozens of times alone and aloud with others for two years before she died in July at age 95.
Jean Feldeisen 