Fearless as ever, Pamela Redmond is a Naked Old Woman

At 70-something, she's willing to expose the truth of a woman's body over a lifetime

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“Everything I’d been working on for 25 years was turning to dust [thanks to AI], and at the age of 72, I was facing the reality that I had to find a new way to make money and get artistic recognition.” - Pamela Redmond

I met Pamela Redmond when she bounced into the newsroom of the University of Wisconsin’s Daily Cardinal, eager as a puppy, her flaming red hair long and flying. This was a half century ago, when she and I were both reporters on the student newspaper. We lost touch in the intervening years, but we reconnected about a decade ago at Generation Women, a women’s multigenerational storytelling event¹ in NYC.

Now we’re both in our 70s and Pam is busier, more productive, and (this part is important) more fearless than ever. You might be familiar with the hit Netflix series Younger, based on her eponymous novel. Pam is also the creator of Nameberry, the world’s largest and longest-running baby naming site. But it’s her new one-woman show that caught my eye recently.

Pam is keenly aware of the threat of AI to her baby naming business. What could she do that AI can’t, she wondered? The answer came almost immediately: Old Woman Naked, her one-woman performance where she strips off her clothes, on stage, in front of a large audience, as a way to reveal her deepest secrets and to make the point that, as a 70-something woman, she is not invisible. This would be my definition of fearless.

More fearlessness in the revealing interview below. Enjoy!

And be sure to read Pam’s essay, What the Body Knows, how the story of her body is really the story of her life.

Photo by Mark Hanauer

Debbie Weil: You started your Substack, The Jubilarian, saying “I need a plunge,” quoting Mrs. Dalloway. What’s the plunge been like this past year?

Pamela Redmond: Writing that first Substack, getting in touch with that wish for a plunge, was the start of a huge creative renaissance for me. I’d just left my publisher after rewriting my novel 11 times over three years, finally concluding that we’d never agree on its direction. I was struggling to keep my website Nameberry alive after AI stole all our content, and with it my reliable income and funding for my retirement. Everything I’d been working on for 25 years was turning to dust, and at the age of 72, I was facing the reality that I had to find a new way to make money and get artistic recognition. A Substack that made no money was in no way the logical solution to those problems, but that was its appeal. Since everything I should be doing hadn’t worked, why not do what I wanted to do, what made no sense but presented a new challenge and new freedom?

It opened up the world to me in a way I hadn’t experienced since I launched the website in 2008 and started publishing novels in 2000. That creative energy from the newsletter led directly, if not logically, to the idea for Old Woman Naked and a completely new direction in my work.

I had the idea for Old Woman Naked this past July, finished writing it by late August, and performed it in New York on October 7.

Now a fancy NY director, Wendy C. Goldberg, is developing it to be performed on a bigger stage with a star in the lead role. The New York Times Style section has already written and photographed a piece I hope will run soon. Ed note: we will insert the link as soon as it’s published.

So, the plunge has been incredibly invigorating and has set my career on a completely new path.

DW: You’re either very brave or, er, totally crazy: take us back to last summer and the genesis of your one-woman show, Old Woman Naked.

PR: I am very brave and I wouldn’t call the show crazy, but original. The work I always aspire to, the very best work of mine and of other people’s too, is something that is both totally original and totally natural. Something you’ve never seen that way before, but as soon as you see it, you know that is the way it should be.

Exposing the truth about women’s bodies over their lifetimes feels like that kind of work.

The funny thing is that I remember the genesis of each of my great ideas very clearly. They happened quickly and (that word again) naturally. Old Woman Naked started with wanting to do something AI couldn’t do. That meant it had to be real, personal, live, indelibly human. So, a one-woman show of some kind.

But how would I get people to come to my show? I could take off my clothes, I joked to myself. And immediately thought: That is a great idea. Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Chapel Roan, Kim Kardashian take off their clothes and attract massive attention. But no old woman has ever done that.