By Suzanne Braun Levine,
Huff/Post50

My new book How We Love Now is out this week.

The date was chosen because in publishing January is “self-improvement month.” The thinking is that at the start of the New Year we want to repent for all the guilty pleasures we indulged in over the holidays. Which is also why we make resolutions — to become better than we are. Oy, the guilt.

By Suzanne Braun Levine

This has been quite a month!

First of all, I finally held in my hands a copy of my new book How We Love Now; it has been eighteen months since I finished it, and at last it is real. The scary part is that it will soon be in the hands of actual readers, and while I am anxious to hear if it resonates with other women, I am less anxious to hear if it doesn’t, which will undoubtedly happen.

By Suzanne Braun Levine

I am happy to report that I am now blogging on Huff/Post50. My first post is up today – “We Still Undress in the Dark, But the Sex Is Great!”

By Suzanne Braun Levine,
EXCLUSIVE, BOOK EXCERPT

Thousands of women in their fifties, sixties and seventies are living – and defining a totally new love narrative. Whether they are already experiencing intimacy or joy – and great sex! – or need the inspiration and support to go for it, readers will be energized and motivated by the stories of new ways of loving in How We Love Now: Sex and the New Intimacy in Second Adulthood…

By Suzanne Braun Levine

I have always hoped that one day I would see someone reading one of my books on the subway. In the fantasy I go over and ask them how they like the book. They say “I love it!” and I say “I wrote it!”

That hasn’t happened yet, but it would be the peak experience in the progression of my book from the privacy of my own manuscript out into the world. Now, I am very proud of what I have written; I do want people to read it – and, needless to say, love it. But I know that won’t happen unless I put myself “out there” too. …

By Suzanne Braun Levine

Valentine’s Day celebrates loving and being loved. But, for much of our lives, the festivities commemorated a kind of Romance that our own relationships could only approximate – a sticky sweetness that the classic heart-shaped box of candy symbolized.

By Mary Eileen Williams, founder

Feisty Side of Fifty/ Baby Boomer Women

I always enjoy my conversations with Mary Eileen Williams on “Feisty Side of Fifty Radio.” She is an enthusiastic interviewer and friend of women over 50.

I am sharing her post on our most recent program because she again shows what a feisty supporter she is on my behalf and the subject of my next book about love, sex and intimacy in second adulthood…

FEISTY SIDE OF FIFTY RADIO

“LIVE,” JANUARY 14, 2PM ET

We are starting the New Year of FEISTY SIDE OF FIFTY Radio Programs with a Special Preview of my upcoming book – “LET ME COUNT THE WAYS: Finding Love, Sex and Intimacy in Second Adulthood.”

An Update on My Next Book!
As those of you know who have already filled out my questionnaire about intimacy, I am working on a book about how this mysterious, precious, and elusive condition is experienced by women in our fifties, sixties and seventies. The valentine season is an invitation to issue a progress report on my findings.
Mysterious and personal as love is, it knows no age limits.  Studies of the brain chemistry of people in love revealed neurological activity that was “the same whether the individual as 18 or 50-plus,” …

Because I am trying to chronicle our experiences as we define a new stage of life, I feel free to ask impertinent questions, and I am always rewarded by honest and thoughtful answers. No surprise, really, from women who are discovering the joys of not caring “what other people think anymore.” Much of what they tell me begins with an astonished “I can’t believe that I am telling your this…” or “I can’t believe I am doing this…” but we are surprising ourselves at every turn.
My latest line of inquiry …