Name: Tim Lindner

Pronouns: He / Him

Age: 38

Bio (no more than 75 words): Tim Lindner is a Writer and a Project Manager based in Jersey City, NJ. Tim has published poems in The Northern Virginia Review, Awakenings Review, the Artemis Journal, and more. He is the editor of The Book of Life After Death, published by Tolsun Books in September 2023, and co-editor of Prom Queens: Celebrating Prom Poems & Stories by Queens Writers published by Poets of Queens in 2026.

Please answer the following (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. What’s currently keeping you up at night (existential dread, grocery lists, life epiphanies, imaginary arguments, or all of the above…)? Everything always, but mostly how much I still owe and pay in student loans, that I really have to quit smoking. I typically go to sleep and wake up in panics that I’m not doing enough in life. As someone that has mild depressive episodes, I often have suicidal thoughts and then when I am ill, I freak out that I’ve been manifesting my death by accident.

2. What valuable lessons have you learned and unlearned from your ancestors? (Family, cultural, chosen, or imagined.) Men have always done the least in every area of my life, and women always held everything down from planning holidays, caretaking, and just showing up in general, so it’s always been important for me to show up for the women in my life and the world. We also never had a ton of money, but still had delightful experiences as a family, which didn’t teach me the value of money, it taught me to ignore it completely (hence the student loans).

3. Where are you in the liminal space of age and/or identity right now? I’m headed for 40 in a little over a year, and feel better than ever. Somehow, I’m more athletic than I’ve ever been, playing in several volleyball leagues a year and jogging 5ks. Since moving to Jersey City in 2022, I’ve really had fun exploring my identity beyond just being a gay man—becoming a person who wears crop tops and women’s shorts, watches the Knicks, paints his nails, and sometimes has beer with the old guys at the local dive. There are no borders or rules!!

From the eight questions below, select and answer FIVE (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. If you were a ghost, who would you haunt—and how would you let your presence be known (Smoke, rattling chains, moving furniture)? Oh, I love ghosts. I just got a ghost tattoo in New Orleans this past November. I would haunt my local trivia team and subtly give them hints to answers by, like, dropping a ripped page from a menu in front of them that has the initials of the president they’re trying to guess.

2. What’s a place, habit, or moment that reliably feels a little bit enchanted to you? Gunnison Beach in New Jersey is clothing optional, and it’s the most magical place on earth. Everyone has such a common respect for one another, and baring it all in the sun puts me in touch with my body and earth in such a beautiful way that I hadn’t experienced before I went there.

3. What did you believe you were “running out of time” for—and how do you see that differently now? Oh finding the love of my life for sure. When my ex and I broke up, I never thought I’d find love ever again and resigned myself to being fully unlovable. I was around 30 when we broke up, and in the gay world, that’s practically 6 feet under. I have zero desire now to find love or even date. I have so many amazing friends who bring me joy. I absolutely love being alone, unless someone really blows me out of the water; I’m not interested.

4. What are you learning to live alongside, rather than change or “fix”? I am so messy. My desk has like a thousand water cups on it, I am constantly dropping my debit card on the sidewalk, forgetting my backpack at places, and events on my calendar never have the right time. I completely lack object permanence skills sometimes, and I often ask myself Why am I like this? I accept it now, and sometimes do things to minimize the impact on my daily life, but often just see these moments as side quests in my daily life.

5. When/Where have you (quietly or loudly-both count) refused the script you were handed?

6. What brings you power, pleasure, or joy that once felt impractical, indulgent, or “too much”?

7. What bodily investment do you spend time or money on that others might call “vain,” but you know is actually about visibility, ritual, and power? I definitely think running. I pay for a few 5ks and one 10k a year, and I’m always one of the slowest in my age group, but the endorphins I get when finishing feel like giving my brain a car wash. During COVID, I started running around the suburbs obsessively — training so that if the highways ever jammed up from the zombie apocalypse, I'd have enough stamina to get away.

8. Here at AGECRAFT After Dark, we view aging as initiation and empowerment—but let’s be honest it’s not all glow-ups. What part of aging genuinely sucks for you right now?

Stay tuned for Tim’s essay tomorrow!

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Name: Jen Kwok

Pronouns: she/her

Age: 43

Jen Kwok is writer, musician and non-profit leader who works at the intersection of art and collective healing. As a composer, Jen has written music for Sesame Street, Peloton & Vox Media. As an actor, Jen has appeared on TV shows such as Netflix’s “Friends From College”, and performed comedy at theaters and venues all around the US. She is currently based in NY’s Hudson Valley and is mom to a kid and goldendoodle.

Please answer the following (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. What’s currently keeping you up at night (existential dread, grocery lists, life epiphanies, imaginary arguments, or all of the above…)?

Lately I’ve been waking up at around 4am to a mix of anxiety and FOMO. I’m anxious knowing that I have to get up in a couple of hours, already feeling the overwhelm of the tasks I need to complete. I have FOMO in terms of missing the full amount of sleep that I should be getting.

2. What valuable lessons have you learned and unlearned from your ancestors? (Family, cultural, chosen, or imagined.)

I have learned that it takes tremendous strength to fully be who you are–and that hiding or contorting yourself to outside expectations is a misuse of energy, and ultimately a betrayal to yourself and others. I have learned that it is best to show up authentic and truthful, even if it means that you will be facing judgment or rejection. I have had to unlearn that silence equals safety.

3. Where are you in the liminal space of age and/or identity right now?

I am in the liminal space of being both a mother and daughter at the same time, and in the awareness that I’m at very different parts of each of those journeys. I am in between being the most creatively powerful I’ve ever been while also having the least amount of physical energy I’ve ever had. I am in between expressing myself in smaller, safer spaces and being received or made visible in larger, more unknown spaces.

From the eight questions below, select and answer FIVE (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. If you were a ghost, who would you haunt—and how would you let your presence be known (Smoke, rattling chains, moving furniture)?

2. What’s a place, habit, or moment that reliably feels a little bit enchanted to you?

I love aquariums. Watching sea creatures move underwater feels like a window into another world. It’s a reminder that there are realities within our own world where different rules apply–that different expressions of beauty, biology, movement, time and space exist. Knowing that expands my own capacity for possibility and wonder.

3. What did you believe you were “running out of time” for—and how do you see that differently now?

4. What are you learning to live alongside, rather than change or “fix”?

5. When/Where have you (quietly or loudly-both count) refused the script you were handed?

I am unwilling to actively engage in systems and dynamics that are broken, and that have no desire or capacity to heal or evolve. It took me a long time to find true alignment with communities and friendships that embody open-hearted collaboration and support, and that has led to me being incredibly discerning about where I give my time and energy.

6. What brings you power, pleasure, or joy that once felt impractical, indulgent, or “too much”?

Engaging in spiritual or energetic practices on a regular basis is something that feels so powerful and important. When I first started doing this work, even a twenty minute meditation felt like “wasting time” because it was not “productive” through the lens of our capitalistic society. Connecting with myself used to feel like an indulgence because we are asked to be so disconnected throughout the day in order to accomplish more. Now, I realize that it is much more costly to not to connect with myself.

7. What bodily investment do you spend time or money on that others might call “vain,” but you know is actually about visibility, ritual and power?

I have always seen my hair as a canvas for me to experiment with. It is a way for me to express myself that feels evolving and not too serious.

8. Here at AGECRAFT After Dark, we view aging as initiation and empowerment—but let’s be honest it’s not all glow-ups. What part of aging genuinely sucks for you right now?

Growing older is hard because of all the years I had with a younger body. Things just worked better and required little to no maintenance. Learning to truly take care of my health has been a huge learning curve. It makes me realize how much I took my health for granted when I was younger.

Name: Mike Dressel

Pronouns: He/Him

Age: 48

Bio (no more than 75 words): Writer. Plant dad. Pet stepparent. Formerly: Actor, educator, and various jobs from the random to the absurd. In addition to writing, I sometimes make art and kooky t-shirts. I live in Astoria, Queens.

Please answer the following (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. What’s currently keeping you up at night (existential dread, grocery lists, life epiphanies, imaginary arguments, or all of the above…)?

My left hip, honestly, it’s started to trouble me. And the pets (a big brown dog and a small black cat) are unruly bedfellows, yet I don’t have the temperament to kick them out. Mostly it’s existing in our perpetual American nightmare. Are we living in a polycrisis? Sure feels like it.

2. What valuable lessons have you learned and unlearned from your ancestors? (Family, cultural, chosen, or imagined.)

Justin Vivian Bond, as the sozzled cabaret singer Kiki DuRane, bellowing “Don’t get too comfortable!” to audiences has always resonated. As a queer man, I’ve also looked to our elders, who’ve survived so much, and take strength from the lessons they imparted. For instance, it’s important to remember you can march all day and dance all night, take to the barricades and afterward, the dance floor. That artistry and activism are intertwined. Most importantly, remember to leave the fight behind and love hard when you’ve won, for however brief that moment lasts.

3. Where are you in the liminal space of age and/or identity right now?

The Dantean dark wood.

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From the eight questions below, select and answer FIVE (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. If you were a ghost, who would you haunt—and how would you let your presence be known (Smoke, rattling chains, moving furniture)?

In college we had a bit where we amused ourselves by supposing, what if you were haunted by Fred Schneider of the B-52s? He wouldn’t terrify you, but just sort of appear and annoy you in his sing-song voice, like showing up in your bathroom mirror saying, “Time to brush your teeth!” So if I were to haunt someone, or some place, I wouldn’t be poltergeisting out, rather it would probably be me doing a bad Fred Schneider impersonation and haranguing people in their home--”please compost your waste!”

2. What’s a place, habit, or moment that reliably feels a little bit enchanted to you?

Martha’s Vineyard. I spent two summers working on the island in my young adulthood, right after undergrad, happily marooned in the Atlantic, on this Island of Misfit Toys. It was a period where I came into something like myself, and because I was only there from late spring to early fall, avoiding the bleak isolating winters, the island always has that perfect, sunkissed glow in my memory. I keep trying to get back there, unsuccessfully, though I’m not sure if it’s to that physical place or just the feeling of that time, of endless possibility and no real consequence.

3. What did you believe you were “running out of time” for—and how do you see that differently now?

My artistic practice. It’s easy to be discouraged, or jaded, when everything in the culture is geared toward youth and to success right out of the gate. So now I’m just plodding along, doing what I can, with intention. The work is the reward: reward yourself.

4. What are you learning to live alongside, rather than change or “fix”?

5. When/Where have you (quietly or loudly-both count) refused the script you were handed?

I reject the well-worn aphorism that people become more conservative as they age. People need to become more radical, if anything. I strive to become more open, and have to remind myself to liberate my imagination, which, as someone inclined to curmudgeonry, is not always easy.

6. What brings you power, pleasure, or joy that once felt impractical, indulgent, or “too much”?

7. What bodily investment do you spend time or money on that others might call “vain,” but you know is actually about visibility, ritual and power?

8. Here at AGECRAFT After Dark, we view aging as initiation and empowerment—but let’s be honest it’s not all glow-ups. What part of aging genuinely sucks for you right now?

It’s not so much an internal thing but an external one, as aging means watching your parents get older too. I remember back in my twenties,when the last of my grandparents passed, I turned to my sister and said, “we’re on deck now.” After losing my father and watching my mother survive a bad fall, my anxiety about her well-being is amplified.

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Name: Mark Price

Pronouns: he/him

Age: 53

Bio: With over 25 years of experience as a coach and teacher, Mark is dedicated to helping individuals create lasting, sustainable change from the inside out. His work lives at the intersection of somatic practice, nervous system regulation, meditation, and social change.

Mark is a Vedic Meditation teacher and pulls from the modalities of traditional coaching, Somatic Experiencing, Inner Relationship Focusing, and Focalizing. He is the founder of Alchemy Collective, where he leads transformative programs for individuals, organizations, and communities. His work has extended globally, including workshops and trainings for corporations, universities, and executive health programs.

After experiencing PTSD and performance anxiety, Mark discovered Vedic Meditation and was profoundly impacted by its effects. This led him to complete an intensive 2 year teacher training, including study in Rishikesh, India, advanced coursework in Vedic knowledge, and ongoing mentorship with leading teachers in the field.

Through his work, Mark supports others in reconnecting with their inner resources, building resilience, and creating meaningful change in their lives and the world.

Please answer the following (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. What’s currently keeping you up at night (existential dread, grocery lists, life epiphanies, imaginary arguments, or all of the above…)?

I have great hope for where we’re headed, what we can do as a collective. But there is so much division right now, and what we have access to in terms of the information that’s coming out can really crash our nervous systems. We’re not designed to know what’s happening in every corner of the globe 24/7, we’re designed to be in community with each other, and I worry that people forget that change starts in their immediate circle of influence, their families, communities, co-workers, and geographical locations. Bloom where you’re planted is what I always say, but what I see in others and even in myself at times, is that we’re so fried by the firehose effect of events that we lose connection to possibility for what’s possible right here and now.

2. What valuable lessons have you learned and unlearned from your ancestors? (Family, cultural, chosen, or imagined.)

To feel it is to end the cycle. I come from a lineage of trauma, addictions, suicides, and generations of men that didn’t have language for what they felt, so the default is shame and “not enough.” I think of the men in my family in particular, and the conditioning away from this idea that there’s strength in softness. That to have connection to emotion is actual stability and to find someone to confide in and to share can be an unburdening. Now that I’m a father, my inner childhood wounds say hello in real time with every passing year as my son gets older, which is a phenomenon for a lot of parents. But I see clearly how this idea of “not enough” has creeped in like a virus over generations and eroded character. That ends with me, the work I continue to do, and the possibilities I can model for my son.

3. Where are you in the liminal space of age and/or identity right now?

I feel like I’m just getting started. I love getting older, I love the embodied wisdom, not caring what others think as much and the capacity for joy that I experience from simpler things. I love the potential for connection with myself and others that I didn’t have access to in my 30’s and 40’s. I have a background in the arts as a performer, so the amount of ambition, drive, hard work, and not being able to slow down in the gig economy as an artist is garbage. It’s been such a blessing to let that go and opt for more presence and connection.

From the eight questions below, select and answer FIVE (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. If you were a ghost, who would you haunt—and how would you let your presence be known (Smoke, rattling chains, moving furniture)?

I would haunt shitty casting directors and leave mysterious animal turds for them.

2. What’s a place, habit, or moment that reliably feels a little bit enchanted to you?

Nature. Always. Trees in particular. There’s a spot in a nature reserve nearby where there’s a circle of pine trees that stretch up to the sky, creating a canopy of leaves above and a spot with pine needles and a couple of tree logs for seats underneath-it’s a powerful spot, like a circle of the elders.

3. What did you believe you were “running out of time” for—and how do you see that differently now?

4. What are you learning to live alongside, rather than change or “fix”?

More compassion/acceptance, less of a need to crack any code or find any formula. I had a teacher recently who stated his practice was letting go. Daily. When I heard that, as a person who’s lost many people to various unexpected tragedies, I flinched, but when I really thought about it, that’s all we’re ever doing, which is letting go of who we think we are, of rigid attachment to outcome, of time, events, and space. That’s all in favor of creating space for the next moment, the next experience of vitality. It’s a beautiful practice when you think about it, and I think that’s what I strive for. The letting go and being present to what is.

5. When/Where have you (quietly or loudly-both count) refused the script you were handed?

The moment I was born, and the decision to have a child.

6. What brings you power, pleasure, or joy that once felt impractical, indulgent, or “too much”?

Stillness. Good coffee, high thread count, massages, travel and house plants.

7. What bodily investment do you spend time or money on that others might call “vain,” but you know is actually about visibility, ritual and power?

8. Here at AGECRAFT After Dark, we view aging as initiation and empowerment—but let’s be honest it’s not all glow-ups. What part of aging genuinely sucks for you right now?

Oh boy, the energy for sure. I miss that level 10. I think having a kid really puts that in check, but the inexhaustible source of energy that felt I could go on for days would be stellar. But that being said, I don’t understand people who feel like once they hit 50, they’re ready for retirement. As I mentioned before, I’m just getting started.

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For tomorrow’s AGECRAFT After Dark podcast, I interview Jason Moyer, but first, I asked him to do the questionnaire!

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Name: Jason Moyer

Pronouns: he//they/she

Age: 50

Bio (no more than 75 words):

In earlier iterations of me, I was an actor, writer, producer (the list goes on) and I wrapped my identity in those jobs. My current identity has no title. I’m just a happily married person enjoying life as best as I can. You’ll currently find me writing poetry in my notes app on my phone, sweating happily on a dancefloor or laughing wildly at A Golden Girls re-run.

Please answer the following (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. What’s currently keeping you up at night (existential dread, grocery lists, life epiphanies, imaginary arguments, or all of the above…)?

Trying to maintain my sanity and inner peace while living through fascism and surviving late-stage capitalism in a dying America is pretty overwhelming.

2. What valuable lessons have you learned and unlearned from your ancestors? (Family, cultural, chosen, or imagined.)

Find the Joy. When I think of ancestors, I think of my queer ancestors who, even though they are not linked to me by blood, handed down important lessons through their legacy. To me, queer people must find the joy. We are born into a world that does not inherently support us. We are typically raised by parents who don’t know or understand our queer souls, and we must fight to be seen for the people that we are. We are harassed, bullied, bashed, and killed. But when I am with my community, I only see the joy. The joy on the dancefloor, the joy of queer people openly expressing their love, and the joy of our freedom- a freedom that frightens so many. Noted sex advice columnist, author, and media pundit, Dan Savage, is quoted about living through the AIDS epidemic: “We buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night.” Now, more than ever, we must laugh through tears, we must bring light in the darkness, we must find joy where others may not see it.

3. Where are you in the liminal space of age and/or identity right now?

I will be 50 in less than a month, and I love where I’m right now. I feel as though I’m remembering who I was, who I wanted to be, and the person I wish to become, and embracing all those identities at once. This is the clearest perception of self that I’ve ever held, and it’s thrilling. I’m excited for what will come, and I’m striving to embrace myself with love and kindness while sharing that with everyone with whom I come into contact.

From the eight questions below, select and answer FIVE (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. If you were a ghost, who would you haunt—and how would you let your presence be known (Smoke, rattling chains, moving furniture)?

2. What’s a place, habit, or moment that reliably feels a little bit enchanted to you?

A hot shower where I’m not rushing, and I can just enjoy the physical experience. The sound and sensation of the water calms my body and activates my brain in so many amazing ways. Most of my best creative moments have come to me while hot water is washing over me.

3. What did you believe you were “running out of time” for—and how do you see that differently now?

In my 20s and 30s, I believed there needed to be certain milestones I should reach in my career and personal life. Working towards those goals filled me with anxiety. I felt I was constantly running out of time and comparing myself to others, but, truthfully, these goals weren’t aligned with who I actually wanted to be. Now my goal is to love myself, to care for my friends and family, and bring a bit of peace and solace in a chaotic world. The real truth is that we’ve all been running out of time since we were born. Running out of time to be a child, to be an adolescent, to be a young adult, or to be a success. Now I embrace the fact that everything is so fleeting. I find this liberating and terrifying at the same time. Instead of worrying about running out of time, I try to focus on where I want to make time. How can I make time to see my aging parents? How can I make time to maintain friendships? How can I make time to enjoy the things I love?

4. What are you learning to live alongside, rather than change or “fix”?

As someone who has recently been diagnosed as neurodivergent, I’m learning to live with all the parts of me that I previously felt were broken or wrong. Learning this about myself, I realized the things I thought were flaws were just the way my mind processed the world. I’m giving myself grace for being different and for blaming myself for so many things that I really never had control over.

5. When/Where have you (quietly or loudly-both count) refused the script you were handed?

I feel like my whole life has been about flipping the script that someone else was trying to hand me. Coming out as gay was the first definitive time that I did so. Living a creative life, being in an ethically non-monogamous marriage, and coming out as a polyamorous, non-binary human have all been rewriting how society might want to dictate who I should be. Now I’m embracing my neurodivergence and learning that the way I view the world may be unconventional, but it’s liberating and unique.

6. What brings you power, pleasure, or joy that once felt impractical, indulgent, or “too much”?

7. What bodily investment do you spend time or money on that others might call “vain,” but you know is actually about visibility, ritual, and power?

I am a licensed esthetician, so I spend time on skincare and grooming. Looking the best that I can look for my age is an amazing flex, but, more importantly, doing things to make me physically feel better affects my mental attitude in positive ways. Whether it’s keeping a gym routine or a skincare regimen, the acts of caring for myself make me feel powerful.

8. Here at AGECRAFT After Dark, we view aging as initiation and empowerment—but let’s be honest, it’s not all glow-ups. What part of aging genuinely sucks for you right now?

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Name: Zoë Bean

Age: 53

Bio (no more than 75 words): Zoë Bean is a tattooer & artist living and working in South Orange, New Jersey.

She loves flowers, growing them, drawing them and pressing them. Along with her partner Sweety she owns Keepsake Studios, a private tattoo studio, and Keepsake Collectables where they sell reimagined Victorian Era frames filled with rare objects and pressed flowers. She is a mother, a baker, an antique collector and an obsessive ice cream maker.

Please answer the following (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. What’s currently keeping you up at night (existential dread, grocery lists, life epiphanies, imaginary arguments, or all of the above…)? What isn’t keeping me up at night. The state of the world is definitely high on my list. Existential dread is real in the overnight hours.

2. What valuable lessons have you learned and unlearned from your ancestors? (Family, cultural, chosen, or imagined.). I have been so fortunate to come from a long line of incredibly strong woman. I grew up with woman who modeled hard work and that having a big mouth was an asset. I think the lesson I’m really trying to internalize these days is authenticity, truly being myself all of the time and being ok with not being everyone’s flavor.

3. Where are you in the liminal space of age and/or identity right now? I am trying my hardest to embrace aging. It is such a privilege to get to be this age, so many people in my life didn’t get to be. I’ve watched the woman who came before me age with real power and purpose and at the same time really struggle with their appearance. I’m trying hard to really exist in my skin as best I can. For the moment I’ve decided to not inject anything into my face. I’m trying to approach my changing face with curiosity.

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From the eight questions below, select and answer FIVE (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. If you were a ghost, who would you haunt—and how would you let your presence be known (Smoke, rattling chains, moving furniture)?

2. What’s a place, habit, or moment that reliably feels a little bit enchanted to you? Tattooing without fail always feels like magic to me. I’ve been making tattoos for almost twenty years and it never gets less amazing. I can be super stressed leading up to the start of a tattoo, stressed about the drawing, the client or even my own personal stuff but as soon as I pick up the machine I am completely in my body and present in a super unique way. It feels like nothing else and I absolutely love it.

3. What did you believe you were “running out of time” for—and how do you see that differently now? I think in my thirties I had this idea that as an artist I had a limited amount of time to make something important. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to understand that the making itself is the something important. As long as I follow my curiosity and make things I’m ok. The career stuff, the money, the recognition, none of that matters as long as I’m making things I feel excited about.

4. What are you learning to live alongside, rather than change or “fix”?

5. When/Where have you (quietly or loudly-both count) refused the script you were handed? The script I was handed was the same as most woman my age, be pretty, be quiet, be a wife and a mom, never look older. I think i refused this script from the time I was 7. I have never been able to do normal things in a normal way. I didn’t get married until I was in my mid 30s and I didn’t have a wedding. I didn’t have a kid until I was 41. All along the way there was pressure to do things differently but I just never could. I always just did what felt right in the moment.

6. What brings you power, pleasure, or joy that once felt impractical, indulgent, or “too much”?

7. What bodily investment do you spend time or money on that others might call “vain,” but you know is actually about visibility, ritual and power? This is easy, getting tattooed. I love being tattooed, not the getting tattooed part but the being tattooed part. Being tattooed has allowed me to realize the body that I want to live in and I really love being able to be a part of that for other people.

8. Here at AGECRAFT After Dark, we view aging as initiation and empowerment—but let’s be honest it’s not all glow-ups. What part of aging genuinely sucks for you right now? Menopause really sucks right now. I genuinely love being this age. I’m mostly ok with how I look. I joke around about becoming the Baba Yaga but I actually love my grey hair and the lines around my eyes. What I love less is the insomnia, anxiety and hot flashes.

Tomorrow I launch the AGECRAFT After Dark Podcast, where I interview Zoe!

I hope you’ll tune in!

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Name: Jenna Struble

Pronouns: she/her

Age: 53

Jenna Struble is a queer, creative artist who writes, tells stories, and makes pretty things. She has led many lives in theater, circus, and crisis advocacy, as an educator, arts and teen program director, and nonprofit leader and consultant. A native Texan, she enjoys living in southeast Vermont with her two fur babies, J.F. and Ellie. Jenna enjoys creating and adventures of all sizes, doing quaint Vermont-y things with friends, and volunteering in her community.

Please answer the following (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. What’s currently keeping you up at night (existential dread, grocery lists, life epiphanies, imaginary arguments, or all of the above…)?

Like a lot of us, the news around the world keeps me up at night. I refuse to be helpless, so I stay involved at the civic level, focus on relationships, and do what I can.

I’m also experiencing the longest period of unemployment of my life. The first two months, I was totally lost and scared. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do or where to start. It’s taken a real intentional approach of therapy, understanding my brain and how it works, getting on the right medication, and engaging in a practice of meditation and creative arts.

In examining my career, I could see patterns that did not serve me. I realized they were linked to beliefs I had about myself from past trauma. EMDR therapy has been extremely helpful, and I can feel a shift. I also start the day with a combination of Buddhist meditation and witchy ritual, giving me clarity, self-compassion, and confidence to make decisions. Returning to a creative practice has helped me rediscover myself after losing my identity to career-driven hyperfocus. It’s been the fuel I needed to come back to myself.

2. What valuable lessons have you learned and unlearned from your ancestors? (Family, cultural, chosen, or imagined.)

My whole life has been unlearning patriarchal programming of being the supportive female in not only relationships but in the workplace. I have to consciously not sacrifice my happiness and comfort to benefit others. I swore I would not be a housewife like my mom and her mother before her. But even with a career, working long hours, I still thought it was on me to come home, cook, clean up and manage the household - leaving me no time or energy for myself or my creative life.

It took the pandemic lockdown for me to finally learn to ask my (then) partner for what I needed and to find the value in work-life balance. Even though I grew up with friends of all races and backgrounds, there were some white supremacist beliefs I had about how I needed to help people of color when they didn’t want or need my help. I also had to unlearn the “bootstrap theory” of my parents. That doesn’t work when entire systems are designed to keep entire populations oppressed.

Living abroad also opened my eyes to how we have been indoctrinated with American exceptionalism. Living in countries with free healthcare, a livable wage, mandatory vacation time, and no fear of retirement really let me know we have so much work to do as a nation.

3. Where are you in the liminal space of age and/or identity right now?

I am in mid-life, embracing my full feminine power and practicing more creativity and centeredness. I identify confidently in that age range, but don’t limit myself with “I’m too old” baggage that doesn’t serve me. Age is a mindset. Living in a community with a majority of people over 65 helps me see the vast spectrum of how to age well.

My body holds me back, but my will and my mind keep me moving forward. And the work on my body is ever evolving. If we had universal healthcare, I would be in a lot different shape and would perhaps not be living with chronic pain and limited mobility. But that is not reality. So I do what I can, and I have eliminated the fear and stigma that kept me from asking for accommodations.

From the eight questions below, select and answer FIVE (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. If you were a ghost, who would you haunt—and how would you let your presence be known (Smoke, rattling chains, moving furniture)? PASS

2. What’s a place, habit, or moment that reliably feels a little bit enchanted to you?

The town I live in can be quaint and enchanting AF. It is a slow life that allows me to pause and see the enchantment of small moments alone or with others. Magic is found in local arts programming, being outdoors hiking or swimming in the river, a cold naked sauna with the ladies, delicious food, and community events.

Recently, Transom Media came to our town to produce a storytelling event and give a two-day free workshop. I was selected along with nine others. The event was one of the largest I’ve seen in town, with 400 sold-out seats and 100 standing room only tickets. There was a moment when we were all seated, lights were still up, musicians on stage, the emcee off stage going over his notes — and suddenly, without a noticeable prompt —it became totally quiet. Over what seemed to be a silent minute or two, we all just existed with each other. It felt bigger than all of us. We were truly in community. And as the music started, it felt like we all took in a breath together for a night of truly moving stories from this small town in Vermont.

3. What did you believe you were “running out of time” for—and how do you see that differently now?

After my divorce, I thought I was running out of time to love again. That turned out not to be true. I had two short but lovely relationships last year and enjoyed every minute of them. We were not meant to last, but I felt love, and I know I can again in my future.

4. What are you learning to live alongside, rather than change or “fix”?

My neurodivergence. My whole life, I thought something was wrong with me. It took me longer, I worked harder, and still felt like it wasn’t enough. But in recent months, after working with my doctor and my therapist, I’ve come to realize I have all the long-term signs of ADHD and was not diagnosed. Good medication and some techniques are helping me. But the best help of all was just realizing and embracing it, which gave me a path forward.

5. When/Where have you (quietly or loudly-both count) refused the script you were handed? PASS

6. What brings you power, pleasure, or joy that once felt impractical, indulgent, or “too much”? PASS

7. What bodily investment do you spend time or money on that others might call “vain,” but you know is actually about visibility, ritual and power?

My hair. It’s expensive as hell, but it is the one thing that helps me feel young and beautiful. I never leave the house without a compliment.

8. Here at AGECRAFT After Dark, we view aging as initiation and empowerment—but let’s be honest it’s not all glow-ups. What part of aging genuinely sucks for you right now?

Osteoarthritis, sagging skin, the inability to lose any weight, not being able process food and alcohol like I used to, and having to be really intentional about sleep.

The weight used to be kind of empowering to me - made me feel unique and kind of sexy around my thinner friends. But now, I feel like a burden when we are together, and that is depressing to me. Losing weight for me is more successful with medication, but with inconsistent insurance/health coverage, it’s been impossible to be consistent. I have also learned that obesity is a disease and a disability, but the health care industry is still treating it like a willpower issue. Without weight loss, osteoarthritis is painful and inoperable.

Pain management is also a struggle. Living this way the past few years has allowed me to see the world for the truly disabling place it is, and I have had to reconcile with being disabled in a lot of ways. I honestly do think about it every day, multiple times a day. All of this has been very challenging to my mental health, and ways I help myself live with disability add to overall expenses.

Embracing the disability has helped me be better about asking for what I need. It influences decisions for my future to make sure I am working in an environment that will support and encourage my health goals of losing enough weight to have knee replacement surgery and recover well.

Name: Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons

Pronouns: she/her

Age: 48

Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons is a Queens-based writer, educator, and producer of No, YOU Tell It!, a nonfiction series that brings storytellers together to trade tales, speak each other’s words, and empower voices on the page and stage. Kelly Jean is also the editor of the No, YOU Tell It! Ten-Year Anthology and the Prom Queens: Celebrating Prom Poems & Stories by Queens Writers anthology. Follow @kjfitzsimmons and collegeessaykj.substack.com for more.

Please answer the following (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. What’s currently keeping you up at night (existential dread, grocery lists, life epiphanies, imaginary arguments, or all of the above…)?

My cat bouncing on my head, the heat going on and off, my upstairs neighbors who don’t seem to understand that furniture should stay in one place, and the horrible mistake I made that, if I could go back and change, obviously means my life would be better in every way.

Oh, yes, and the constant pain of the staggering lack of empathy in our country and all the death and destruction it has caused, my worries about the future world awaiting the high school students I work with, and how long before I lose my health insurance.

My most useless nights, though, are when I can’t kick the bad habit of replaying social interactions with friends and worrying that I said the wrong thing, talked too much, or didn’t let my friend talk enough.

Sometimes I have to soothe myself to sleep by saying over and over, “If they didn’t like you, they wouldn’t keep asking you to hang out.”

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2. What valuable lessons have you learned and unlearned from your ancestors? (Family, cultural, chosen, or imagined.)

One thing I don’t want to continue is the family tradition of Catholic guilt. When I visit my family in Florida, I only want my teenage niece to do things with me if she wants to, not because she feels obligated or pressured to spend time with me.

So much of my childhood was spent feeling bad about my feelings, and I don’t want to pass on that shame to my niece.

Likewise, when I’m here in New York, I try hard not to keep a running tally of which of my friends attend the shows I’ve produced or the workshops I’m hosting. Of course, I always want to see my friends’ faces, but I don’t want anyone to feel obligated to attend. Likewise, if I can’t go to friends’ events, either because of conflicts or because my soul needs a quiet night at home with my cat, I no longer wrestle with the guilt of choosing myself.

3. Where are you in the liminal space of age and/or identity right now?

A friend recently asked me to take part in a project she was doing on motherhood, under the category “women who chose not to be mothers.” Her request hurt because I never made that choice; marriage and children just never happened for me. However, I also didn’t want to be a mother so badly that I felt compelled to pursue that path on my own.

The past few years, I’ve mourned the idea of having children one day and accepted that, even if I love again, that person won’t ever know my parents, especially my mother, who has Alzheimer’s.

Leaving all of that behind feels like a clean slate of unknown opportunity. As my 50s rapidly approach, I feel hopeful for this new decade of Kelly Jean, focused on who I am rather than who I once thought I should be.

Helping care for my parents the past few years has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. However, spending so much time in rehab centers and senior living facilities has also shown me how young I am, right now, and that there is no better time to embrace the gift of mobility.

From the eight questions below, select and answer FIVE (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. If you were a ghost, who would you haunt—and how would you let your presence be known (Smoke, rattling chains, moving furniture)?

I wouldn’t haunt a person, but a place—Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, which is an attraction inside The Chinese Theatre (based on the real-world Grauman’s Chinese Theatre) at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando. That ride replaced The Great Movie Ride, where I worked all through college as a tour guide on the twenty-two-minute slow-moving tram ride through the greatest films of all time, and a cowgirl who kidnapped the tram halfway through the journey.

Disney closed The Great Movie Ride in 2017, but the magic of my youth lives there, including the day that I met Santa Claus and Robin Williams, which I wrote about in Hippocampus Magazine.

I refuse to ride Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway.

Still, I like to think that whenever the ride breaks down, the park guests stuck inside are haunted by the echoes of thousands of former Great Movie Ride Cast Members crying out, Once a Movie Rider, always a Movie Rider!

2. What’s a place, habit, or moment that reliably feels a little bit enchanted to you?

In Gloucester, MA, the town where my mom is from, there is a real-life castle that was the home and lab of this eccentric inventor, John Hammond, whose inventions were the precursors to drone technology. Now it’s a museum that sits on this rocky cliff overlooking Gloucester Harbor, filled with Roman, medieval, and Renaissance artifacts that Hammond collected, along with his inventions.

My favorite childhood memories were at the castle, hearing all the stories about the crazy pranks John Hammond pulled on his guests, including famous figures like Rockefeller, Lindbergh, and Walt Disney, who left mid-stay because he hated the historical, uncomfortable bed with an “authentically-stuffed” horsehair mattress.

My aunt’s friend first took me to Hammond Castle when I was very little, and I was mesmerized by this outdoors/indoors room filled with plants and trees, where Hammond could control the weather, making it rain and thunder inside. There was a shallow pool in the middle, with a bridge over it, and John Hammond used to make his guests scream by jumping off the bridge into the water, since they thought he would break his neck. However, he’d designed it as an optical illusion, and the pool was really six feet deep.

Looking back, it dawned on me that something very bad must have been happening in my family for my aunt’s friend, whom I didn’t know all that well, to be entertaining me for the day.

Being the youngest often meant being on the outskirts, protected from what was going on with my grandfather’s Alzheimer’s or my grandmother’s cancer, but also isolated.

Hammond Castle is where I fell in love with stories, and it’s the only place in Gloucester where I’ve never felt lonely. I still go whenever I have the opportunity and recommend you visit, too.

3. What did you believe you were “running out of time” for—and how do you see that differently now? Pass

4. What are you learning to live alongside, rather than change or “fix”? Pass

5. When/Where have you (quietly or loudly-both count) refused the script you were handed?

My best friends in high school were twin guys, and we’re still close. A while back, when they first started having kids, we all spent a holiday weekend together at one of their houses. It was a lovely catch-up trip, seeing them and their wives, who are both fantastic, and playing with their children. Between them, they had five kids, all babies and toddlers.

Loading up the minivan was quite a production because almost every adult had a child in their arms, except me.

A neighbor wandered up and bluntly asked, “And where is your baby?”

Lowering my head, I whispered, “I don’t like to talk about it,” and walked away, leaving the nosy woman in stunned silence.

I gave in to my impulsive reply because I wanted to make the twins laugh, which they did, and also because f*&k that lady.

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6. What brings you power, pleasure, or joy that once felt impractical, indulgent, or “too much”?

My cat Clarence. I avoided getting a cat because I lived alone and liked to travel, and also because of the “Crazy Cat Lady” stigma. Then he dropped into my lap as a rescue, and we’ve weathered so much over the past 13 years.

During the pandemic, I went to live with my parents in Florida after my dad took a horrific fall in April 2020, the best possible time to land in the emergency room, followed by weeks in a rehab center! But we were very lucky that we didn’t lose him from the fall or from catching COVID, since the safety protocols in Florida were a joke.

His recovery took almost a year, and I had to help him stand every two hours, go to the bathroom, etc. My mom was afraid that Clarence, a big orange tom, would attack her two smaller kitties, so the poor guy was banished to my room. He was only allowed out at night once my mother and her cats (who had their own room!) went to bed.

It was all very Flowers in the Attic, minus the incest.

Clarence was such a trooper, and I couldn’t have survived that time without him. So now I take and post as many cat pictures as I want. Although let’s face it, I’ve been doing that since I rescued him because he’s such a handsome boy!

7. What bodily investment do you spend time or money on that others might call “vain,” but you know is actually about visibility, ritual and power? Pass

8. Here at AGECRAFT After Dark, we view aging as initiation and empowerment—but let’s be honest it’s not all glow-ups. What part of aging genuinely sucks for you right now?

My memory. I’ve always remembered everything, weird details, mental to-do lists, things friends told me decades ago. I never had to write anything down because it was all right there. Friends have called my memory my superpower.

My memory slips aren’t anything major yet, but it’s clear my superpower is fading. Now I write to-do lists, and if I don’t capture a cool conversation in my journal right away, the dialogue is gone when I go to write about it later.

Time is my kryptonite, and the most minor memory slip scares me because I’ve always taken after my mom, in looks, in other health issues, and the family history of Alzheimer’s is always a concern.

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Once or twice a month, guest writers will be contributing to AGECRAFT After Dark by answering the AGECRAFT After Dark Questionnaire, found here. It’s a simple, slightly mischievous framework designed to make writing here feel approachable and less perfectionistic, and more…see what happens if you follow the thread.

The questionnaire isn’t just for the writers, though, it’s for the readers too. The questions are meant to spark that quiet click of recognition, the “oh… same, SAME” moment, or to send you wandering into your own thoughts long after you close the tab. The goal isn’t answers or agreement. It’s resonance. Aging, identity, and becoming are collective experiences, even when they feel deeply personal.

That said, it felt only right to go first.

Before inviting other voices into this space, I wanted to answer the same questions I’ll be asking of them (maybe you?). Partly as a warm-up, partly as a proof of concept (for sure), and partly because I don’t want y’all to think I’m hiding. If I’m asking others to wander into the liminal, the slightly feral and the spooky… I can do that too.

So consider this both an introduction and an offering. I’ll start!

Julia Granacki answers the AGECRAFT After Dark questionnaire!

Name: Julia Granacki

Pronouns: She/Her

Age: 50

Julia Granacki is a board-certified health and wellness coach (NBC-HWC) and Pilates instructor helping people navigate midlife as initiation, not decline. Through AGECRAFT, she blends evidence-based behavioral change practices with ritual, symbolism, and sharp cultural insight. Her work centers bodies that refuse to disappear—across genders and identities—and invites clients to craft lives that can hold what emerges, especially in the liminal space of aging and identity shifts.

Please answer the following (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1) What’s currently keeping you up at night (existential dread, grocery lists, life epiphanies, imaginary arguments, or all of the above…)? My husband’s snoring. Specifically at 3 a.m. It is truly breathtaking how I can love and adore a person with every fiber of my being while simultaneously fantasizing about smothering them with a pillow. Marriage is an enigma.

Beyond that—night terrors, sleep paralysis, and the occasional shadow person (this will absolutely be covered in another post, I promise). And, of course, my own crippling self-doubt, courtesy of my overly industrious, deeply unhelpful inner critic, whom I lovingly refer to as The A**hole. She specializes in replaying every embarrassing, mean, or questionable thing I’ve done since approximately age eight.

She is deeply committed to this work! Especially dragging me back to that fifth grade pool party where I took my shirt off, forgetting I’d already removed my swimsuit top underneath. “T*ts out” is an overstatement, biologically speaking, given I was a prepubescent. BUT. It was still enough to fuel hallway gossip for months.

The A**hole remembers everything.

2)What valuable lessons have you learned and unlearned from your ancestors? (Family, cultural, chosen, or imagined.) From both my actual family and my chosen family, I learned what real resilience looks like. Not the Instagram-performative version, but the kind forged through tragedy, death, breakups, lost jobs, and lives that didn’t turn out the way anyone planned. Knowing what the people around me have survived reminds me, again and again, that I can survive the hard parts too.

I learned the magick of making things from my mother and both of my grandmothers. Crocheting, sewing, creating music, and writing poetry. Creation was how feelings, history, and love moved through our family. In my Eastern European family, it certainly wasn’t through open communication!

After my maternal grandmother passed, we discovered poems she had written and never shared. I have one she wrote about World War II hanging on my wall. There a few lines crossed out and rewritten. Totally imperfect and exactly PERFECT. It’s a quiet inheritance and proof that creativity survives us and waits to be found.

I had to unlearn the idea that the job paying your bills is allowed to make you miserable—that suffering was somehow a part of being responsible. I’ve since replaced that belief with the understanding that I can earn a living doing work that actually lights me up.

I also had to unlearn my inherited Eastern European stoicism. The reflex to stay silent, swallow feelings, and call that strength. Becoming softer, more communicative, and more emotionally available has been its own kind of resilience.

And finally, I had to unlearn the story that marriage is a state of quiet misery. I’ve learned instead that it’s possible to fall deeply in love and build real friendship and respect with the person you choose to share your life with.

This is what I’ve learned to keep and what I’ve learned to release. Resilience without martyrdom, love without misery and work without punishment. Now, I’m crafting a life with enough intention to hold what comes next.

3)Where are you in the liminal space of age and/or identity right now? As an ally, I’ve always understood gender and sexuality as a spectrum, in theory. In practice, I somehow assumed this was important work for society at large and not, you know, something that applied directly to me.

And yet, over the last five years or so I’ve had the very clear realization that if I were suddenly back in the dating world (I am not, calm down), I would absolutely date people who identify as transmasc. This discovery arrived quietly and without drama.

I’m fairly certain Mae Martin (via Wayward and The Handsome Podcast)was my “oh, interesting” moment. I’m not rushing to label this realization, because I’m in my fifties and I’m tired. BUT. It did clarify something—my sexuality is more fluid than I previously gave it credit for.

Important clarification: I am deeply happy, satisfied, and very much in love in my marriage. No structures are being dismantled and no dramatic announcements are forthcoming. This is simply an observation. A quiet expansion of self-awareness that showed up in midlife like, Surprise! You still get to learn things about yourself!

Which, frankly, feels like the most liminal thing of all.

From the eight questions below, select and answer FIVE (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1)If you were a ghost, who would you haunt—and how would you let your presence be known (Smoke, rattling chains, moving furniture)? I’ve always loved a good jump scare, so this would be my vibe! First, I’d haunt my husband and then my friends. For my husband, I’d manifest as disembodied snoring in the middle of the nigh. If you read question #1, you know this is cosmic justice. For my friends, I’d pop up in the bathroom mirror while they’re brushing their teeth and then immediately disappear. No explanation. Just to make them jump!

That said, if I’m being honest, I’d be a truly terrible ghost.

If you know me at all, you know my memory is trash. I once got into a full-on argument with a friend who insisted I was in our college production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I told her she was 100% wrong only to receive a shaky video twenty minutes later of me doing a very underwhelming dance in said production. Apparently, I blocked it out. Along with… a lot of other things.

Half the time, I can’t even remember why I walked into the next room.

So while I aspire to be the creepy snore or the fading apparition in the mirror, the reality is I’d probably float into someone’s house, forget who I was haunting and why, knock something over, panic, and then spend eternity trying to remember what I came there to do in the first place.

So. If you notice objects slightly out of place and a vague sense that something almost happened, that’s probably me!

2)What’s a place, habit, or moment that reliably feels a little bit enchanted to you? PASS

3)What did you believe you were “running out of time” for—and how do you see that differently now? PASS

4)What are you learning to live alongside, rather than change or “fix”? I was diagnosed with ADHD in my early forties. And because the term gets tossed around like confetti these days, I’ll clarify—this was not a self-diagnosis. I was formally tested and diagnosed by both a therapist and a psychologist.

Finding out I was neurodivergent in midlife was equal parts mind-blowing, vindicating, and quietly heartbreaking. Suddenly, decades of behavior (especially in my twenties) made sense. The reactivity! The paralyzing overwhelm and the ways I moved through the world that felt peculiar or off-putting, leaving me convinced that something was fundamentally wrong with me. I spent years treating those traits as personal failures, as brokenness I just needed to try harder to fix.

Naming the thing changes everything. Had I known earlier, I could have pursued treatment, but more importantly, I could have offered myself grace instead of shame.

Now, I don’t see my neurodivergence as something to fix. I see it as a superpower. One that requires training, boundaries, and personal responsibility. I have to know my triggers, protect my rest, use my CBT tools, and, yes, take my meds.

And when The A**hole inevitably shows up in the middle of the night to remind me of past missteps or perceived failures, I’m learning not to argue with her or believe her. I acknowledge her presence and tell her to f*ck right off.

5)When/Where have you (quietly or loudly-both count) refused the script you were handed? When I turned 40, I found myself six years into a C-suite executive assistant role and having a very real, very unglamorous midlife crisis. I was good at my job. I was miserable in my job. And I knew I needed to quit but I just had absolutely no idea what I was quitting to.

So I did what many anxious, capable women do. I collected credentials. I got my Pilates mat certification and enrolled in the dietetics program at Hunter College because I thought I wanted to be a nutritionist. On paper, it all looked very responsible.

In reality, that degree would’ve taken years (while working full-time) and cost roughly the same as a small house. Then life stepped in. An engagement, a death in my immediate family, and those plans fell apart completely. Which in hindsight, was revealing. Maybe they weren’t the right plans to begin with.

Around that time, a colleague I genuinely like said to me, half-jokingly, “Oh, you’re not going anywhere. You’re so good at this. You’re a lifer. You’ll never do anything else.”

They didn’t mean it as an insult. But. If there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that nothing motivates me quite like being told my story is already written.

I didn’t leave immediately. In fact, it took another six years, but I did leave. I did change my life. And refusing that script—even slowly, even quietly—turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

6)What brings you power, pleasure, or joy that once felt impractical, indulgent, or “too much”? PASS

7)What bodily investment do you spend time or money on that others might call “vain,” but you know is actually about visibility, ritual and power? I make no apologies for caring about how I look. I get Botox (When I can afford it!). I use all the lotions and potions. I highlight my hair, keep my nails shellacked with chemicals that will probably rot my fingers off, and own an unreasonable amount of makeup, especially colored eyeliner, which feels both joyful and mildly financially irresponsible.

I’m 50 and in the best shape of my life, and yes, I dress to show off the work I’ve been putting in at the gym and in the Pilates studio. Not because I’m chasing youth, but because I earned this body. That’s not vanity, that’s pride, and pride for women in midlife is a form of power.

This is about visibility. About refusing to quietly fade into the background just because the culture gets weird about aging women taking up space. Looking good to yourself can be ritual. It can be armor. It can be a reminder that you’re still here and still allowed to enjoy being seen.

I fully support whatever power and pride look like for every BODY. I tell my Pilates clients all the time—I don’t build skinny bodies, I build strong ones. Strength and power come in many forms.

Yes, it’s important to stay aware of what the patriarchy and culture try to sell us about beauty and worth, but at the end of the day, it’s your body. You’re the one who has to look at yourself in the mirror and that reflection should feel GOOD at any stage, at any age and at any weight.

Whether you go gray, get your skin lasered off, wear lipstick, or don’t. Own it. Love it. Let it flow from you as power.

8)Here at AGECRAFT After Dark, we view aging as initiation and empowerment—but let’s be honest it’s not all glow-ups. What part of aging genuinely sucks for you right now?

My eyesight, or lack thereof.

Being both near- and far-sighted is a special kind of baneful magick. I’m currently wearing one progressive lens in one eye, which means I can sort of see most of the time.

Allegedly, this is “the best we can do.” At least until I can get robot eyeballs.

It is not great.

It is, in fact, deeply annoying.

The AGECRAFT After Dark guest-writer questionnaire isn’t an application, a personality test, or a trap. It’s a vibe check and a prompt.

Its job is to drop writers into the same liminal, slightly feral headspace this Substack lives in. To jump right in without overthinking it, like a warm-up stretch for your brain so you don’t have to stare at a blank page trying to sound smart or profound. I promise you, big thoughts are already lurking, and your past selves may wander through with unsolicited commentary. We welcome that!

And. You’re allowed to be thoughtful and funny. Seriousness is optional.

What are the questions?

Please answer the following (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. What’s currently keeping you up at night (existential dread, grocery lists, life epiphanies, imaginary arguments, or all of the above…)?

2. What valuable lessons have you learned and unlearned from your ancestors? (Family, cultural, chosen, or imagined.)

3. Where are you in the liminal space of age and/or identity right now?

From the eight questions below, select and answer FIVE (each answer should be no more than 200 words):

1. If you were a ghost, who would you haunt—and how would you let your presence be known (Smoke, rattling chains, moving furniture)?

2. What’s a place, habit, or moment that reliably feels a little bit enchanted to you?

3. What did you believe you were “running out of time” for—and how do you see that differently now?

4. What are you learning to live alongside, rather than change or “fix”?

5. When/Where have you (quietly or loudly-both count) refused the script you were handed?

6. What brings you power, pleasure, or joy that once felt impractical, indulgent, or “too much”?

7. What bodily investment do you spend time or money on that others might call “vain,” but you know is actually about visibility, ritual and power?

8. Here at AGECRAFT After Dark, we view aging as initiation and empowerment—but let’s be honest it’s not all glow-ups. What part of aging genuinely sucks for you right now?

Who Can Submit Answers?

Anyone is welcome to play with the questions. Seriously. Think of them as a low-stakes brain game or a fun way to see what bubbles up if you’re curious about writing, aging, identity, or just enjoy answering weirdly good questions at night.

That said, publication on AGECRAFT After Dark is by invitation only. Not every response is meant for the Substack stage, and that’s intentional.

If you’d like to be considered as a guest writer, you’re welcome to reach out.

Email theagecraftpractice@gmail.com with “questionnaire” in the subject line and a short note about your interest and links to your website, socials, and/or other writing.