WHAT DOES AGE HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

I made an ageist comment. It didn’t seem ageist at the time. I was sitting in the second row of a packed room at Flyleaf Bookstore in Chapel Hill as Pat Schneider finished reading from her new book, How The Light Gets In.

I came to hear Pat for two reasons. One, I wanted to see the woman who developed the Amherst Writers and Artist (AWA) writing method. And, second, I wanted to see a fellow writer that was still prolific going into her ninth decade and had the stamina to go on a book-tour at six sites across North Carolina in seven days.

Maybe it was the interview I had heard a few years ago, which had taken residence in my memory that influenced my comment. A local author discussed her new book on a radio talk show. When asked her age, she said she never tells…