**AS SEEN IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, BITCH MAGAZINE, THE LA REVIEW OF BOOKS, LIT HUB, AND MORE** In this groundbreaking collection of essays, poems, and creative nonfiction, more than twenty-nine writers offer witty and incisive insight into the unique experience of being or having an older parent in today's world. By turns raw, funny, tender, and wise, these stories reshape our understanding of the social factors that impact later parenthood, honor the strength and resilience required to overcome countless challenges posed in healthcare and adoption settings, and relish in the many joys of a parent-child relationship, no matter what age. Writers, child development experts, and older parents themselves Vicki Breitbart and Nan Bauer-Maglin have curated a collection that truly affirms and destigmatizes the act of becoming a parent over 40, whether by choice or by chance. Contributors include New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award winner Elizabeth Acevedo; award-winning author Adam Berlin; writer and editor Laura Broadwell; author and editor Salma Abdelnour Gilman; professor and institute director Elizabeth Gregory; podcast producer and host Barbara Herel; author and research scholar Elline Lipkin; retired journalist Linda Wright Moore; founder and executive director of The Democracy Center Jim Shultz; and more. Tick Tock is a document, a community, a manual, a help line, a chorus of voices expressing the gamut of complicated emotions that accompany a person of a certain age contemplating the leap into parenthood. I wish this important book existed when I was at that crossroads, and am grateful for it today. -Michelle Tea, Against Memoir Tick Tock reads like a wide-ranging chat with friends who ask 'What's your story?' These are human, lived tales that describe life-changing and interconnected issues-political, social, and personal. What a gift. -Judy Norsigian and Jane Pincus, Our Bodies, Ourselves Tick Tock is an exquisite, understanding, and inclusive examination of the unique challenges and joys faced by older parents. An unforgettable book-undeniably important and a pleasure to read. -Beverly Gologorsky, Can You See the Wind?

Becoming a widow is one of the most traumatic life events that a woman can experience. Yet, as this remarkable new collection reveals, each woman responds to that trauma differently. Here, forty-three widows tell their stories, in their own words. Some were widowed young, while others were married for decades. Some cared for their late partners through long terminal illnesses, while others lost their partners suddenly. Some had male partners, while others had female partners. Yet each of these women faced the same basic dilemma: how to go on living when a part of you is gone. Widows' Words is arranged chronologically, starting with stories of women preparing for their partners' deaths, followed by the experiences of recent widows still reeling from their fresh loss, and culminating in the accounts of women who lost their partners many years ago but still experience waves of grief. Their accounts deal honestly with feelings of pain, sorrow, and despair, and yet there are also powerful expressions of strength, hope, and even joy. Whether you are a widow yourself or have simply experienced loss, you will be sure to find something moving and profound in these diverse tales of mourning, remembrance, and resilience.

Gray Love narrates stories about the most common themes – searching for and (perhaps) finding love. Forty-five men and women between ages 60 and 94 from diverse backgrounds talk about dating, starting or ending a relationship, embracing life alone or enjoying a partnered one. The longing for connection as old age encroaches is palpable here, with more and more senior singles searching online. Those who find new partners explore issues that most relationships encounter at any age, as well as some that are unique to elder relationships. These include having had previous partners and a complicated and deep personal history; family and friends’ reactions to an older person’s dating; alternative models to marriage (such as sharing space or living apart); having more than one partner at the same time; one’s aging body, appearance, and sexuality; and the pressure of time and the specter of illness and death.