Older and Wiser
If your ego is fragile, don't try to get a book published.
When retired USC professor Lillian Hawthorne looked for a publisher for her book "Finishing Touches: An Insightful Look Into the Mirror of Aging," she described it as an ego-assaulting experience.
She finally found Elder Books, a small publisher in Northern California that specializes in nonfiction related to aging.
Hawthorne, who will be at Borders at 11 a.m. Thursday to discuss and sign her book, wrote it from her perspective as a seventysomething senior who knows about aging up close and personal.
"I hoped I could be a voice to articulate what other people have felt and experienced," said Hawthorne, who lives in a retirement community in Camarillo with her husband.
*
Still, she didn't expect to take rejections from other publishers so personally. "You put so much of yourself into this--particularly a book like this which has so much of me, my peers and my generation--but it's me on the line there."
Hawthorne has written for other publications, including professional journals and Get Up and Go magazine (formerly Senior World), for which she wrote a bimonthly column.
Meanwhile, Hawthorne continues to accumulate new insights and experiences--especially some of the pluses and minuses of retirement. Which brings up her advice for newly retired couples.
"You have to redefine your roles with each other," she said. "It's difficult for men more than women because women have always had other kinds of support systems and activities."
She noted a research project she was involved in where long-term couples were asked separately to identify their closest friends. The women named other women; the men named their wives.
Hawthorne has more suggestions, such as being willing to take some risks and try something new. She took her own advice and now does book reviews for a local TV channel. Interestingly, as a critic she finds that the fiction market has shrunk and much of it is poor.
Wonder if some fiction writer took that personally.
HAPPENINGS
* Sunday, 2 to 4 p.m. The Conejo Valley Poetry Society will present a concert featuring poets reading their work accompanied by improvisational music, percussion and dance. $2. Thousand Oaks Community Gallery, 2331-A Borchard Road, Newbury Park, 1-888-975-1239.
