Launching at this Tuesday’s Halifax Club literary luncheon, I Feel Great About My Hands is a collection of stories on the touchy subject of aging. Edited by Shari Graydon, award-winning women’s advocate and past president of women’s group MediaWatch, with contributions from 41 Canadian women—including locals Sheree Fitch, Carol Bruneau and Dawn Rae Downton—the book promises to embrace “the changes, discoveries and wisdom that come with age.”
“I think this book is a collection of terrific essays and tidbits that offer diverse reflections on aging—not just the typical groans and moans of the aches and pains on the physical process—but some truly funny and deeply considered pieces on how we keep on learning to be human as we age,” Fitch says. “As I understand it, Shari Graydon decided to do this as a response to Nora Ephron‘s I Feel Bad About My Neck.”
Fitch, whose recent work Pluto’s Ghost is a thriller for the YA set, describes her submission to the collection as a “rant,” and a “performance poem” weaving together sorrow, love, babies, Inuit throat singing and orange boots and black evening dresses, among other themes. “The piece I did challenged me on a lot of levels. It’s a call to be outrageous—to celebrate more than lament, to keep exploring instead of getting too comfortable, to keep heart open rather than closing down,” Fitch says.
“For the record, my mother said she read my piece three times and still didn’t get it.”
This article appears in Aug 11-17, 2011.
