📚 The juicy bits (and a replay) from the first-ever meeting of the NO GUILT [B]old Women Book Club

Abigail Thomas enthralled us with her honest tips about writing at 83, plus a surprise appearance by a 97-year-old

Aug 05, 2025

∙ Paid

“Who do you write for?” asked one of the attendees. “Me,”
Abigail Thomas
replied with her customary, but gentle directness.

In the course of one hour,

Abigail Thomas

answered questions from all of us in her to-the-point, profound way and urged all of us participating in this first-ever No-Guilt [B]old Women Book Club last week to “write, just write.” About 20 attendees Zoomed in from Seattle and Whidbey Island on the West Coast, from Arizona, Las Vegas, Mississipi, Connecticut, Virginia, DC and New York, from London, from Quebec, and even from Western Australia where it was 11 PM (kudos to

Kisane Slaney PhD

)—along with my hugely helpful and wise editor

Erin Shetron

We discussed Abby’s newest memoir, STILL LIFE AT EIGHTY, and her signature writing style that captures what she calls “liquid moments.” We focused at this first gathering on writing craft and did not get to a discussion of [b]old age issues such as grief, gratitude, and mortality; I hope we can include more conversation about those topics in the next meeting.

Some love from attendees

Said attendee

Lisa Renee

, who writes The Long Middle, “I love how (Abby) writes about memory, and also nothing and everything all at once. (She) captures the spaces between the moments so well. The perfect quotidian, the best details of life."

Attendee

Vicki Robin

, who writes Coming of Aging, said this: “I hung on

Abigail Thomas

’s every word at an online book group hosted by Debbie.”

Said

Cherie Lejeune

about the book club, “It was a gift to connect with Abby sitting on her couch, and she was so in her element; she, if you observed, even lit up three cigarettes! And I could envision her daily ashtray as she plunked away on I assume her computer keyboard.”

Some quotes & wisdom from Abigail:

“All power comes from darkness.”
“There are only two hard-and-fast rules about memoir: you have to be honest, and you can’t skip the hard stuff.”
“It’s very good to not know what you’re doing. Because then there’s much more available to you.”
Read out loud to hear the dead zones/dishonesty in your writing.
“If your motive is revenge, write fiction. You can do much worse things to them in fiction than you can in memoir.”
“Writing is in all of us. You don’t wake up wagging your tail? Write.”
There are dry zones. Be curious about something, anything, and see where it takes you.
To turn individual pieces into a book (with a beginning, middle and end), print everything out, spread it out on the floor (like divination, says VR) to see what emerges
“You do need a trusted reader who will tell you it’s great or not great. I need another person to say, let’s put this over here, this is good, this is not.” Indeed, I need that!
“Inspiration is everywhere. As long as you’re curious, you’ll have a good time as a writer.”

My favorite moment

For me, it was the surprise appearance of 97-year-old Naomi Epstein. She’s the mother of Substack writer

Susan P. Epstein

, who encouraged her to attend. Naomi shared with us that Abigail’s book is inspiring her “to use her life that is left;” Naomi also reflected on how precious all her memories are to her.

Join us for the next one

We’ve set the date for the next book club meeting: Tuesday Sept. 30th: 11am ET (8am PT, 4pm GMT+1). We’ll meet for one hour via Zoom and I hope you’ll join us! I have not yet chosen the book but promise to do so in the next week or so; which will still give those interested plenty of time to read it.

In the meantime, here are the replays. In addition to the full one-hour replay, I am including two lovely short clips: one is of Abby speaking to all of us, the other is of Naomi addressing Abby.

For full access to this post, to watch the replays, and for All The Perks you get as a paid subscriber, upgrade at the current rate of $40/year. Can’t afford a subscription? Write to me at debbieweil@substack.com and I’ll give you a comp. 🙏