Diana Black Discusses A New Breed of Woman

Please welcome today, Diana Black!

A New Breed of Woman: Diana Black Discusses
WOOF: Women Only Over Fifty

Woof woof woof woof woof?

Wait. Reminder to self: Not everyone speaks WOOF.

At times it seems that way, though, since the launch of WOOF: Women Only Over Fifty. At book clubs, signings and speaking events, there’s never a lack of ladies who share and understand the lingo.

Key topics like night sweats, mood swings, hot flashes and memory…uh, something, I forget…incite a flurry of conversation.

But occasionally I meet a woman and while I’m describing the book, she’ll look at me like, until then, she’d been lost in a desert. Finally an oasis—another woman who understands!

In our information saturated society it’s hard to fathom a middle-aged woman could ever feel alone and isolated. Impossible to log on the Internet, flip on the TV or read a magazine without encountering an explosion of menopausal material. (“Boomers” in every sense of the word!)

But media is, for some, too impersonal. Today, even with personalities like Oprah, Ellen and Diane Sawyer, there’s something about one middle-aged woman standing face-to-face with another 50+ woman that makes it more relatable. Our joys, sorrows and concerns are near to us. We’ve evolved little in that regard since those first grunts between women cooking up a mess of Tyrannosaurus rex. We still seek to communicate person-to-person.

All that said, we’ve also developed into a very private society. We hide behind email and caller ID, setting our boundaries and discouraging genuine personal contact. Would community Internet sites be better named “anti-social” networking? Is that the reason it’s easier for a woman to discuss with me, a perfect stranger, age-related issues?

Or could it be I’m an author who didn’t sign-up for the job until after 50? So it appears I have special powers. That I’m some expert. Or maybe, I’m just not afraid to admit to and talk about my age and all that it entails. Perhaps therein lies the bond.

My co-authors and I wrote WOOF: Women Only Over Fifty for ourselves. Three friends willing to openly share silly, serious and sisterly life experiences.

Naturally we hoped the book would catch on. Still, who honestly knew it would connect women across the world as well as the fence.

But, why shouldn’t a book do that? Why shouldn’t three intuitive, inventive and intriguing women make a difference? Throughout time women have been experts at reading between the lines, interpreting the unspoken word and using language in inventive and inspirational ways.

For example: Will you ever again hear Woof! without thinking of women embracing maturity—Women Only Over Fifty? -- Diana Black

Diana Black co-authored the humor book WOOF: Women Only Over Fifty (Echelon Press) and co-developed the safety program, To School, To School in the Big Yellow Bus. She illustrated The Moose Who Lost Christmas and wrote and illustrated Wendel Wordsworth: No Words for Wendel (BevBruemmerBooks). A graduate of Indiana University, Black lives in Georgia.

WOOF: Women Only Over Fifty (Echelon Press/ISBN: 978-1-59080-606-7)
By Diana Black, Mary Cunningham and Melinda Richarz BaileyNonfiction/Humor; 160 pages