Episodes

Ann Anderson Evans, age 82, lives in Vermont. She is a writer, linguist, and former professor. Her first memoir, Daring to Date Again (2014), which tells the story of what happened after she started dating at 62, won multiple prizes. Her sequel The Sweet Pain of Being Alive: A Memoir of Love and Death (Jan. 2024), narrates her attempt to find out why, after 13 happily married years, her husband killed himself. Her questions about his gender dsyphoria and suicide remain largely unanswered. Ann tr...

Susan Gangsei, a classically trained tapestry artist from Minneapolis, MN, uses her talent to create images of women aging. Her recent series, The Sacred Journey of Aging, features the “beauty, strength, and wisdom of older women.” Susan treats viewers to her tapestries that represent different passages of growing older—feeling invisible, making mischief, putting the pieces back together, reimagining how to live with a health condition, and recognizing the paradoxes of life. Susan will exhibit s...

Visionary and disrupter, Jacynth Bassett, is an award-winning, highly sought after consultant and expert in the anti-ageism/ age-inclusive & positive movement. At only 31, she is widely recognized as a leading pioneer and voice, awarded ‘Anti-Ageist Activist’ of 2023, at the inaugural Advantages Of Age Awards 2023. and named one of Evening Standard’s 22 Londoners Changing the World. She is the Founder & CEO of the award-winning global campaign, consultancy & community Ageism Is Never In Style®,...

LIfe is a constant adventure for Michele Kurlander, 79. She lives in Chicago, yet her heart is in France. A fluent francophile, Michelle spends much of her life traveling between Chicago and Paris. There she has met dear friends who live all across the world. When she becomes interested in an artist, an author, a performer, Michele’s obsession with art and music icons takes over and she devotes that period of her life to understanding all she can about the person. Spending years reading and disc...

Dr. Pamela Meyer is a prolific author, international consultant and keynote speaker, and college teacher whose areas of focus are leadership agility, organizational change, and adult learning. In her most recent book, Staying in the Game: Leading and Learning with Agility for a Dynamic Future, Pamela draws on her experiences as an amateur, gold medalist ski racer and on extensive interviews with older ski racers who keep coming back. Staying in the game is an apt metaphor for women who strive to...

Sheila Solomon’s career in mass media arts spans 50 years. She was among the first African American women to work in the newsrooms of regional and national newspapers. Sheila became a dedicated advocate for affirmative action—bringing people of color into the news business and reporting on race issues in professions outside of journalism. While working as a journalist, Sheila was diagnosed with a very rare, incurable illness that is still being managed. She was allowed to work from home for six ...

As the founder of AGEIST Magazine and Super Ager podcast, David Stewart is a passionate champion of the modern 50+ lifestyle. While interviewing David is a departure from interviewing women 70-110+, we feel that what he has to say contributes to our mission of aging reimagined. Women are the ones who are changing things. Men never experienced ageism, while women experienced sexism throughout their careers and understood ageism as a form of discrimination. Super Ager podcast focuses on how we a...

When Sandy Gordon retired at 70, from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Rosemont, Illinois as Director of Public Relations, a colleague gave her a toast. It said in part: “Sandy has the kind of talent that startles people. Really. Her co-workers and colleagues often sit around wondering how she comes up with her ideas. Ideas that seem to just sort of float out of her brain. It’s as though Sandy can produce life from a primordial soup that for everyone else is just a bowl full of amin...

Coleen T. Murphy, Ph.D is Director, Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, James A. Elkins, Jr. Professor in the Life Sciences, Department of Molecular Biology, and LSI Genomics, Princeton University. She is also Director, Paul F. Glenn Center for Aging Research at Princeton and Director of Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain. As a researcher, Coleen studies aging and the quantitation of “quality of life with age,” including the decline of cognitive and reproductiv...

Dr. Tracey Gendron is an internationally recognized gerontologist with almost 30 years of experience as a grant-funded researcher. She speaks to audiences globally about the real world impact of age bias. She is determined to change people’s negative views about aging. “Ageism, she says, is complicated - more nuanced than most people think it is. Anytime we discriminate against a person based on age, it is ageism. And, since we are all aging all the time, it can be a younger or older person who ...

Carol Stitzer, 80, lives life in the moment. All you have to do is listen to her and you immediately understand that she is positive, talented, energetic and happy. From early childhood education to development professional, fundraiser, artist and volunteer, Carol never lacks for the next big thing. She fine-tuned her skills at the Center for American Archeology and learned early on that planning travel for the Board of Directors offered her unique opportunities to tag along. This applied to her...

A life of social service requires a deep commitment to reaching out, helping out and finding those paths that have meaning to you. Throughout Nancy Hanson’s entire life, she has been doing just that. Following in the footsteps of her mother, Nancy knows no other way of being. Early on, she joined the League of Women Voters and in each of the cities in which she lived, when she and her husband moved multiple times, Nancy found causes she could learn about, study and advocate for through the Leag...

Catherine (Kate) Saccany was born to run. She took up jogging and ran barefoot for her first 30 months because there were no running shoes for women. A career banker, Kate joined LaSalle Bank. Coincidentally, LaSalle sponsored the Chicago marathon. She bought her first pair of running shoes, qualified for the marathon and has not stopped since. Yes, long covid has cramped her style. And, she is now 72. Kate believes it's never too late to become a runner. With the proper coaching and the right p...

Joy, love, compassion - the foundation of Eme’s life and her stories. Eme McAnam was a singer-songwriter who charted in the top 100 in Country Music. Her career has taken many turns: Singer/songwriter, novelist, art photographer. Her newest novel, Freefalling: A Novel of Senior Romance, is based on a topic she knows well from her 91/2 years serving at an assisted living facility. Lewy Body Dementia is the central theme. Seniors, she says, are “us”. She wants her legacy to be seen as understandi...

Educational equity, intercultural communication, and teacher education are the threads of Dr. Gretchen Wilbur’s 30+-year career as an educational leader. Upon retiring from DePaul University in 2019, Gretchen traded an urban lifestyle in Chicago for the rural mountains in Jamaica where she lives with the Maroon people. As the only resident who is White, female, and highly educated, Gretchen is adapting to living in a culture that tests many of her western world views, including identity, communi...

[spp-player] Carol Marin, age 75, is an award-winning television and print journalist renowned for her nearly 50 years of investigative stories on politics, public corruption, and organized crime. In 2016, Carol co-founded and directs DePaul University’s Center for Journalism Integrity and Excellence where she teaches a two-quarter long course in Advanced Reporting for graduate students “ready to jump into the profession.” Ethical problem-solving is a cornerstone of the Center, guided by key pr...

Sex educator, Joan Price, is the voice for ‘ageless sexuality.’ In her books, webinars, presentations, newsletter, and blog, Joan talks frankly about spicy and satisfying sex for seniors, whether partnered or solo. She is the first to address sex and grief in her recent book, Sex After Grief: Navigating Your Sexuality After Losing Your Beloved. Joan advises that sexuality is always a journey, regardless of age and circumstance. She encourages older adults to see themselves as sexual beings and t...

We love all our interviews. However, meeting Betty Werrenrath in person, and interviewing her in her apartment at the Presbyterian Homes in Evanston, IL was a unique experience that we would not have traded. Betty is inspiring, positive, upbeat and interesting. She was born January 28, 1914 in Harrisburg, PA. The daughter of a progressive preacher’s kid, she says, “I had to act decently because he was so well-known”. "“Be more interested in others than you are in yourself. Listen.” - Betty Werr...

Patti Temple Rocks has had a long, successful, and immensely rewarding career in marketing and communications and still she is not done. Her work and her articles and books have been written about in major publications such as Fast Company, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal. Inc. Patti started her career at Dow Chemical in 1981. It was not until many years later that she became obsessed with making sure that age inclusivity is on every company’s D,E&I agenda and that everyone gets to end their ca...

Dr. Susan Mazer is a full-time performing jazz harpist and former President, Co-founder, and CEO of Healing HealthCare Systems, producers of The C.A.R.E. Channel, the only evidence-based, 24-hour relaxation channel for patient television. Now in its 30th year, C.A.R.E. is being broadcasted in over 1,100 hospitals nationally and internationally including Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Australia, The Netherlands, Hong Kong, and many other locations. The discipline of health care led her to study ho...

When nearing 50 years of age and recently widowed, Judy sold everything, bought an around-the-world airline ticket, and set off alone on a year-long journey without a planned itinerary. “The outer journey serves as a container” for Judy’s inner “struggle to find her way as a sober, single, independent woman.” A master teacher and published author of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, Judy’s journey led to her first published memoir, When Your Heart Says Go: My Year of Traveling Beyond Loss a...

Through Top Sixty Over Sixty, Helen writes articles and speaks at conferences to encourage a reframed narrative of aging, one that reflects the age realities of the 21st century. She emphasizes the need for a longevity focus, encourages an entrepreneurial mindset, and cautions against internalized ageism which undermines the potential of older adults. Top Sixty Over Sixty also provides programs and courses for older adults as well as businesses and companies to help everyone benefit from our agi...

Janis Clark Johnston is a family psychologist, speaker, and author of several books, most recently Transforming Retirement: Rewire and Grow Your Legacy. When she experienced 9/11, Janis says, she became more sensitive to other’s pain and loss. Planning rituals to honor the person you lost helps you to grow during the grieving process. Keeping a gratitude journal, for example, is a process that is creative by nature and becomes a daily ritual. Janis believes that recognizing the difference betw...

Emily Clionsky, MD, and Mitchell Clionsky, PhD, are a physician and neuropsychologist couple who have cared for their own parents with dementia, created a test used by doctors to measure cognitive function, and treated more than 25,000 patients with cognitive impairment. They partner at a private practice, Clionsky Neuro Systems, Inc., based in Springfield, Massachusetts. They are frequent public speakers, podcast guests, and workshop presenters for general and professional audiences. In their...