My mother was famous for calling me out on never finishing most things I started. She had a point. But a few months ago, I looked at the manuscript I’d been working on for two years and realized I needed to go on to the next step. That included finding an agent, which was daunting and sometimes (lots of times) deflating. But Maryann Karinch, of The Rudy Agency, saw promise, took me on as a client, and here I am (below) in her agency’s spring/summer catalogue.

Now it’s just wait and see. And believe in myself and my writing. Which is what writers do more than they have their fingers on the keys. Thanks for all of you who tune in on Thursdays.

I  Haven’t  Got  All  Day

           In her frank and funny memoir, Linda DeMers Hummel takes her reader — via a collection of connected essays—from the sweet but inherent awkwardness of growing up in a 1950s Long Island suburb, to her coming of age smack in the middle of the sexual revolution, to her days as a grown woman who was all ready to follow in her mother’s footsteps until the 1960s changed everything. I Haven’t Got All Day is wickedly charming—whether Linda is finding old boyfriends on Facebook, jumping into online dating after 50, or recounting the pratfalls of her life with unflinching truth. Her fine storytelling proves there is no road map for how we’re supposed to age, and that Baby Boomers are still making it up as they go along, as they always have. I Haven’t Got All Day will speak to those who remember their pasts with just a little wincing, lots of laughter, and gratitude for a journey during a most captivating time.

The National Association of Baby Boomer Women, whose constituents are the primary target market, serves 38 million women in the United States between the ages of 52 and 70. They won’t be around forever, of course, and this comes as a great shock to them, so they read about their generation as much as they can.

Linda’s print credits include Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Writer’s Digest, Family Circle, Baltimore Sun, Newsday, Reader’s Digest, Woman’s Day, McCall’s, Ladies’ Home Journal, Sasee, Maryland Magazine, The Sun, Parenting, and others. Her most recent online credits include Washingtonian, The Big Jewel, 1010 Park Place, Author Magazine, Syracuse.com, NPR This I Believe, and NYPress.com. For ten years, she taught writing courses at Johns Hopkins University.