Reinvention, Visibility, and the Freedom of Aging with Pamela Redmond
What does it mean for women to stay visible, powerful, joyful, and fully alive as they age?
In this episode of Roar, host Danielle Davies sits down with Pamela Redmond—novelist, Substack writer, creator of Nameberry, and author of Younger (the book that inspired the hit TV series). Now 72, Pamela has reinvented herself yet again…this time stepping onstage with Old Woman Naked, a one-woman show that explores aging, embodiment, shame, liberation, and the stories women carry in our bodies.
From cultural invisibility to the reinvention required in midlife and beyond, Pamela speaks with humor, clarity, and radical honesty about what it really means to age in a female body—and to finally claim it as your own.
Together, Danielle and Pamela talk about
💥 Why older women are culturally invisible—and why that invisibility can become a source of power
🧍♀️ What compelled Pamela to create Old Woman Naked and why emotional nakedness is scarier than the physical
📚 How Younger and her Substack, Jubilarian, both trace the same thread of reinvention
🖼️ Pamela’s search for depictions of older naked women in art (and what she discovered at the Met)
🧠 Why reinvention requires being “comfortable with being uncomfortable”
🔥 The liberation of aging out of the male gaze
👩🎤 What performing for the first time at 72 taught her about courage, creativity, and aging on her own terms
💬 The parts of our lives we think are shameful—and what happens when we finally tell those stories out loud
Pamela’s honesty is a masterclass in reinvention, resilience, and refusing to fade into the background. This conversation is for any woman who’s ever wondered if her most powerful, creative, meaningful years might actually be ahead of her.
🔑 Key Takeaways
Aging can feel like freedom—a shedding of comparison, standards, and the male gaze.
Reinvention requires discomfort; being a beginner is part of the process.
Emotional nakedness is often scarier than physical vulnerability.
Joy itself can be an act of resistance, especially in turbulent times.
Women’s stories—especially the ones we think we can’t tell—are where our real power lives.
Listen to ROAR with Danielle Davies: Women, Culture & Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. New conversations every Tuesday.
Full Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and lightly cleaned up. It may contain small errors.
Hi, I'm Danielle Davies and you're listening to Roar, a show that amplifies the voices of women breaking barriers, leading change, and making real impact. Keep listening for bold ideas and stories that inspire you to find your voice and make some noise. Hi everybody, this is Danielle Davies, the host of Roar. Today's guest is Pamela Redmond, novelist, substack writer, and creator of Nameberry. You may know her novel Younger, which inspired the TV series, but Pamela has continued exploring what it really means to age, stay visible, and keep redefining yourself.
Her latest project, the onewoman show Old Woman Naked, opens a new chapter. At age 72, she's stepping on stage and exposing both the body and the story of her life, not as a farewell act, but as a reflection on 72 years of living in a female body and refusing to fade into the background. In a way, Old Woman Naked isn't a departure. It's the culmination of everything Pamela's been writing toward. The truth about women and age told without filters and this time without clothes.
Welcome, Pamela. Thanks so much for being here. So, great to be here. Well, that was a great description. Could I borrow that to use for 100%.
I will send it to you when we're done talking. Excellent job. Really? Well, I love what you're doing and I love how I love how you've done so many things. but for this in particular, you know, you've written novels, you've run a global brand, but now you're moving into performance with Old Woman Naked.
What pulled you in this direction? Well, the main thing was that I wanted to do something that AI couldn't do. You know, I Nice. That was that was the first inspiration. And you know, I own this website, Nameberry, that's based on 10 books of names that I wrote with Linda Rosen Crrance over 40 years.
And it basically is a collection of my life's work, our life's work with names where we really transform the whole culture. And then AI tiptoed in and sucked everything out. You know, 40 years worth of content and then they put themselves first in the search results which means that our traffic and our revenue is cut in half in the past year and we didn't even it happened before we knew it was happening. So crazy because you think like about you're a writer and writers are getting, you know, their content taken and their voices taken and their approach taken, but I didn't think of something like that. Wow, that's terrible.
And it's not just us, you know, it's it's publishers of every size. you know, big publishers that are publishing kind of factual information. It's just all been taken. And a company like Newscore or the New York Times or Harper Collins, you know, they can get a deal, a licensing deal with the AI companies, but we're too little, you know, we're just two and a half people basically. We used to be three, but and so, you know, I have found that actually creatively inspiring this year because, you know, we have just been forced to reinvent yet again.
but at the same time it's like oh my god AI really is coming you know it's like you have to be a writer too like what about my dishwasher what about the laundry you know everybody wants to be a writer why does AI need to be a writer anyway I just feel like every thing I've ever done in my life AI is coming and trying to take away from me so it's like I want to do something that AI can't do. So what is that? It's something live, something personal, it's something real, it's something human, right? And I'm like, okay, so that means I appear somewhere in person in some capacity. so what could I do, you know, to make people listen to me as opposed to anyone else?
And I kind of said jokingly to myself like, well, you could take off your clothes, hah. And then I'm like, "Oh my god, that is a great idea. Oh my god, I love I love this. I love that's what you landed on and why like you could take off your because you're right. Nobody's going to look away, right?
And it hasn't been done and there's really a lot to say. You know, it's like a young woman, you know, it's it's you know, I I guess I wrote this once, you know, if you're a Pink Pony girl, it's like you get naked all the time. I mean, there are thousands of naked young women, but there aren't any naked old women anywhere or very few. " Leo Grand. Yes.
" Okay. So, I spent like three hours walking through the Met and I did not find a single one and almost no old women at all. And then I went searching on their database and you know they have a lot of results but you comb through them like what is really an old woman naked. Six depictions from all of history as opposed to Yes. All of history including one a Rodan sculpture entitled the gates of hell.
That's great. That's great. The gates of hell. I'm gonna have to find that and put that up with this. I mean I'll send it to you.
And so, you know, it's like if we're feeling invisible, it's because we actually are invisible. We're invisible in the culture. We're invisible in history. You know, we're invisible to men, certainly. and so that, you know, when I started to really think about what it meant to be an old woman naked, what it meant to expose my body and talk about my body, I thought this is something really that nobody has ever done, you know, that I've certainly never done.
and I just felt super inspired by the whole thing. It was just, you know, it I knew it was a great It was like younger. It was like the baby name stuff. It's like I know this is a great idea and I just boom did it very quickly. And so far it's just been a it was a one night show and but it roll out you know I had never performed at all.
I've done speeches but I've never done anything resembling acting like not even in high school. So and certainly you know have never taken my clothes off. So, I thought I don't know how I'm going to feel up there, you know? I don't know what this experience is going to be like. let's just do it once and see what happens.
So, that's that's what I did. And then, of course, I'm like, I love this. Well, I love that it's like you're telling your personal story, but it's also it's very political. Can you talk a little bit about that, too? And not just Well, I feel like there's the invisibility.
Yes. But there's also like a defiance aspect of it. Yes. Yes. Yes.
It's sort of like all right, you think this is ugly. You think this is unacceptable. you don't want to look at it, but maybe you haven't been looking at it in the way it deserves to be looked at. you know, and I'm saying that in a very thinky way. I didn't start out with that, you know, formulation, but after I wrote it, I thought, you know, you can't, if you're somebody who's 72 or 62 or whatever, you can't look at your body the way you do when you're 24.
I actually have a picture of myself naked at 22. And oh, that was a smart move. Well, what was some like [ __ ] artist took this picture and you know and I let him and I never told anybody. I never told anybody, not even my husband of 33 years, not my best friends ever. it ended up in a book.
I don't even know how I figured that out. And I had to order this book from Germany to get picture which I you know put up behind me when I did the show and it's like I thought I was hideous you know I thought I was so fat I thought you know whatever you know I have this like gorgeous body which of course you can see now right and I'm like I always say if I could go back I would just cartwheel I would just cartwheel naked all over the place because like what I didn't know, you know, I mean, just even just your skin, like the firmness of your se I keep going. I'm so sorry. Oh, no. Absolutely.
That's the whole point, you know, and then to be actually faced with this is what you looked like and this is how you felt. And on the other hand, you know, I look at myself now and I'm inviting, you know, a hundred people to look at me too and it's like now I'm like I look amazing. I actually think, you know, it has nothing to do with the reality, you know, is that reality? The reality inside is like, wow, I'm like, wow, I stand upright. I can walk, you know, I'm still here.
I'm like, I can swim. I can talk to, you know, this body allows me to do so many things that are central to my life, which I don't think I ever saw my body and myself as merged in that way. until I did this. So you know it that is personal more than political but I think you know there's some inverse relationship between how I feel and how most women feel about themselves and how society feels about you. And so once you're past menopause, you know, you're free.
I would call it free from the constant threat is not as really a porative, but it's more like the possibility. Am I going to have another baby? Oh my god, am I pre? You know, once that's all over and it's just you and your body is not going to, you know, give birth to another human or, you know, your body is just yours and the world is like, we don't want to, we don't want to know. we don't want to see it.
There's an incredible liberation in that which is like you're just not I mean I and a lot of women you get over this hump of 50 and it's like I'm not comparing myself to any idealized images. I don't open a magazine or go online and see tons of beautiful bodies that I compare, you know, mine unfavorably to. Right. I didn't even think of that. Yeah.
You don't I mean when you're young it's a it's like a barrage of flipping through magazines and you worked at Glamour right so it's like all I mean my goodness you're like so bombarded with these beauty standards and all I mean you're right who do we see right I mean I got ARP and I was all excited because I was saw Jude Law on the cover of AP and I was like okay these are my people Even that you don't see a lot of women and they're and we're not displayed the same way, you know, in ARP as we are in like a fashion magazine. Exactly. Exactly. so, you know, I think that is a really interesting, you know, doing this show, of course, I've started talking to a lot of women about their bodies, which has been super interesting for me. And everybody has their own way into the show.
You know, a lot of young women have seen it and really relate to it or are really interested to see how things unfold. You know, older women often feel the same way I do. You know, it's I have at least three women I've talked to who are around my age. I will start the sentence with, well, you know, after menopause you feel, and they've all ended that sentence in the same way. Free.
free. I love that. And I feel I read your Oprah article too where you talk about this and how like you finally own it like it's your body. Nobody's even I mean you know there's birthing and if you breastfed like you are a literal food machine. It's just a I almost just said it's a nightmare.
It's great but it's also like you're not your own. you have you're not your own until I think you get to a certain age and then the fact that you can own it by lack of comparison too makes it I think even better. Yes. Yes. you know and one of the things you mentioned about invisibility I there's a there's another author I've interviewed and her name is Kirsten Miller.
She wrote a book called The Change. I don't know if you heard of it or Lula Dean's library little library of band books. And in the change, it's about three women and they're like going through this period of time where you would think of the change, but she has them kind of transform in this sort of in a different way, in a way that's powerful, but one of the things she said when we talked, she was like, there's power in the invisibility. She's like, if they don't see it coming, like you don't know what's going to happen. Like you've got that it's almost like an invisibility cloak in some ways.
Yes. I love that. That is the perfect way to put that. yeah, it's people don't, you know, especially if you're if you're working, if you're running a business, you know, I remember going into some meeting with another website, right? And they're all guys and they're all younger than me.
And they're looking at me like, "Okay, I don't want to [ __ ] her. " And I'm I'm seeing like the wheels turn like what do I make of her? And it's like mom, right? Like where does she fit in my viewpoint? What do they think?
Like what are you wear where do you get what do you get as feedback when people just hear the title old woman naked for the first time? Well, mostly for the first time it's like you mean you're going to be you know why would you want to do that? what you know somebody said like why do you have to take off your clothes to tell this story of your body and I think how could I tell the story of my body without taking off my clothes because it's what happens at the end of the show you know I'm only naked at the end of the show and what people have said is what I wanted to happen which is like now that I've heard this whole lifetime's worth of stories you know and the story of your body it's almost like you actually being naked is the least interesting thing, you know, and I can't see your body without seeing it in the context of this whole history and all these experiences, you know, and that's how the show ends, you know, that it's rather than an idealized image that, you know, I am all these different people and I am all these different things made manifest. And I love this. I love this.
I want to come. If it if it goes on the Please tell me. Please let us know because I want to I have to ask you though. Forget Okay, first of all, you're naked, so that's its own huge vulnerability. But you also never performed before.
So, was this like absolutely terrifying or did it make you feel completely alive or both? No, both actually. I was really terrified that I was going to forget my lines. Yeah. I and I thought from the beginning like there is no way I can remember 40 at the time it was like 4550 minutes now it's longer because I've been unpacking it.
It's like there's there's just no way I can remember this. So I you know did what I do when I do a speech which is cards with like the topic and then but it was that part of it was difficult for me I would say very difficult much more difficult and probably was good because it you know it's like it totally distracted me from the naked part but I the naked part didn't really didn't bother me at all. So that is that is so great. I mean we my sister and I joke like I am so modest and I am I could not like I when I joke that if I wish I could go back in time and like have my naked body caring through the streets with confidence but still I would still be like but I have to put something on just because I'm was grown up Irish Catholic I would still have to put I would still be like feel compelled to cover myself up because that's just what I do But that would be such like a mental I don't know if it would be a mental distraction or an anchor like this is the thing that's getting me through the rest of it. It that would that I just think you did an amazing thing by doing that and simultaneously.
It's not like you're like let me practice being naked first. You did them together. So it's pretty awesome. You know honestly I don't know when I was 50 I don't think I would have done this. I don't think Yeah.
I think I would have still been at that point seeing my body as related in some way to my young body. You know, maybe a softer, somewhat droopier version, but I didn't I think my body has become something completely different. Even though it doesn't look completely different, it feels completely different to me. I but I think that speaks to women's place like we're all you know under the men's gaze under the gaze of men and were described even just last night my daughter said that somebody said something to her about somebody being chunky and she corrected them and they were like well that's just a description and she was like no like there are other ways use your mind there's other ways to do this and so I think the fact that the sad thing is it takes us so long to kind of own our bodies. It takes us, you know, when we are willing to do cartwheels naked or in that shape, we don't we are kind of subjected to that male gaze or even our own inner, you know, looking at ourselves.
We react to our bodies in the way that society does. So, I love that you're doing this. And I and now I'm gonna aspire. " But I do think it's so powerful and especially even as you mentioned in the going into the museums and looking for old women naked and you can't even find them at all. But you can find old men naked everywhere.
Oh yeah. Yeah. They love being naked. Statues in Italy. They're everywhere.
Yeah. But I also Go ahead. I was just going to say I hope this will be bigger than the show. That's that's my intention for it to be much bigger than me standing there doing this like it's a conversation you know it's something that can and should be approached from a lot of different angles. Well absolutely but it also ties into what you started with jubilarian I feel like from an outside perspective.
So you coined this term jubilarian which you mentioned is actually like a Catholic terminology. I guess it was used in churches right interesting. to capture women celebrating this stage of life rather than fading into the background. How does that word reflect where you are now? Well, you know, it very much it connects exactly to what I was talking about with old woman naked, which is that, you know, after 50 suddenly you're like, wait a minute, I thought this was going to be downhill and I'm happier and freer and more creative and more, you know, confident.
you know, I think all these positive things do happen to a lot of women as they got get older. I mean, that's certainly been my experience. So, and you know, Jubilarian and Old Woman Naked are kind of very connected in many ways, but one of the ways is just that doing Jubilarian, which was just an impulse. You know, I write about that in the very first Substack, which is like I was just standing in my kitchen right there and I suddenly it's like I need to do something like I need to I need to well it was I was thinking about Mrs. Dalloway, you know, and there is the beginning of Mrs.
Doway which is all about, you know, a an older woman finding joy in the everyday, right? And she there's a line at the very beginning which is what a lark what a plunge you know as Mrs. Doway which is was Virginia Wolf's book which was the basis for the hours as she goes out to buy the flowers herself you know she's somebody who just loves the world and loves her everyday life and I thought and it was a beautiful day you know and I was looking outside and I just those words what a lark what a plunge came into my head and it's like I need a plunge I need a lark I need something, you know, that's just fun and creative and positive and that's a risk, you know, but in a not in a way that doesn't have very high stakes, let's say. Yeah. But even that kind of joy is sort of resistance at this moment in time.
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That's R O A R15 for a special discount at checkout. Sometimes, you know, I have to say it feels a little bit like, you know, I don't want it to be, oh, the world sucks, so I'm just going to ignore all that and go off and have fun. You know, it it doesn't it I don't get that I don't get that impression. It seems like you're you're trying to stay joyful despite what's going on and like acknowledging that it's a little bit harder and so like making it more meaningful. Yeah.
And you know what? I think that's that's a really good way to put it. And I think that's also central to the joy of getting older is that you do have to on some you do get pleasure from knowing that the days of joy are limited, you know, and that you know that there's something in the show where I actually asked AI like when am I going to die? You know, here are my statistics like when am I going to die? And AI said that I was gonna die on October 22nd, 2041.
Okay, I know. Oh my gosh. Seriously, I know. So, it's like, okay, I've got what is that 16 years? 17 years.
I can't even add it. But, it feels like I and I think because my mother died young, you know, my mother died at 61. And that clock has always ticked really loudly in my ear and more loudly all the time. So I feel like you know this is very precious today is very precious right and this year is you know this moment it's all this body you know that does function that is healthy that is happy you know that can still be joyous like it almost seems like a sin against the universe not to make the most of that. I love how you said that and I feel like you know there are this is really simplifying things but there are like two sets of people.
There are people who feel like you do and are like, I'm going to make the most of all of this and I'm going to find the joy and I'm going to be purposeful about finding the joy because you know the reality is some days are crappy days and there are some people in the world that are crappy people and so you have to make an effort but then there are other people who are kind of just you get the impression that they're sort of just waiting it out like well you know how long can this go on and so I love one of the things that I feel like you have done so well is reinvention. And you write about reinvention, but you're also reinventing yourself. I mean, you just performed as an as on stage as an actress for the first time ever at 72. You've you've reinvented yourself as an entrepreneur, a performer. What have you learned and you've also got divorced after 33 years of marriage?
So, that's that's part of reinvention. What have you learned about starting over, especially later in life or really through all your phases? Well, I think one big thing, especially as you get older, is that you have to get really comfortable with being uncomfortable. And a lot of you're new, right? I mean, I really I think the first time I really puzzled this through was when, you know, I always wanted to be a novelist.
I always that was the thing I wanted to do and I was just paralyzed because I didn't really know what I was doing. I was very much like, am I good enough? Can I be good enough? You know, I didn't even really want to try because it was it made me so uncomfortable. And I took a writing class.
This was in my late 40s. we were living in San Francisco and it was with the novelist Anne Packer. And I was sitting in the parking lot outside the first class and I was so nervous. I mean, I was physically ill. I it seems crazy to me now, but I had not put myself in a position of doing something completely new that I didn't know how to do and that I really wanted to know how to do.
I just hadn't put myself to the test in that way. And it was terrifying. And of course, you know, you do it and then it's it's fine. But it's like I had after so many years of being a professional writer, you know, having success on some level knowing what I was doing in terms of writing non-fiction books, I had to or even short stories, but I had to go back to the beginning and sort of be a beginning be a beginning writer again and and let myself be vulnerable in that. let myself be bad at it, you know, leave myself open to judgment that was not going to be positive, to correction, to learning.
So I that was a huge lesson for me at that time that really kind of became cumulative over time as I started other new things. It's like, oh, if you're you're going to do a new thing, you're going to feel uncomfortable. You need to be okay with that, you know? And that's what it is. It doesn't like I think you can interpret those feelings as like oh obviously I'm no good at this.
You know obviously I shouldn't even try. This is too painful. I can't stand it. It's like that's what it feels like to be new. You're supposed to be ignorant.
You know you're supposed to not know like you're a beginner. You're supposed to not know what you're doing. So but I think so many people don't put themselves in that position after a while. you know, we kind of get comfortable like and actually really I do see it at this age. So I'm 51 and I see and I'm from a small town in South Jersey and you know you see people have been working I know a lot of people who are like well I can retire in this many years and and they're not talking about doing something else.
They're talking about wrapping something up. So they're not which maybe for them they've got a plan and they're you know they're going to do something new and brave. I feel like people can get kind of stuck in that like I'm comfortable, things are comfortable now. We can finally afford XYZ and the kids are out of the house and less it's less it's more unusual to see people go for something new once we get older. Well, I you know I'm envious of those people.
I Yes, me too. you know, if I had that life where I was just happy with everything as it was and I never had to put myself out there. I mean, that sounds pretty nice. maybe I'm just constitutionally, you know, malcontent. Or I do see those years of, you know, I always wanted kids.
I have three kids. I worked through my kids, but at the same time, I worked part-time, you know, and I and the hours that I worked, I felt like I had to make money because, you know, I was paying a babysitter, right? And so when I finally it it took me the years until my kids were older to feel like I deserved to do something just because I wanted to do it that I could spend some time, you know, working on a novel that I knew was not going to pay me any money for a long time or maybe ever. so how old were you when you wrote your first novel? 50.
You were 50 when you wrote your first novel? 50. 50. Yes, thank you. Because that's just awesome.
Thank and that but and that's so great. I love it. I don't care if you're perpetually malent. I love the results because you're not you're not defining what's over. You're you're you're not defined by what's done.
You know, I actually have a friend who has younger kids. " And I was like, it g it was like such joy. I was like, I am so sorry that you're feeling like this, but now I feel great. And I was like, I do feel like a middle-aged white man. And for lack of better terms, I'm like, you just suddenly have that freedom to do what you want to do.
So, here we are on a podcast. Yeah. Exa Exactly that. And you know actually in the book of younger this was not really a theme of the show but Darren Star you know his theme is more love and romance and you know work and self fulfillment and it's not motherhood but the book was a lot more about motherhood and the conceit of the book was that Liza and Maggie were best friends from childhood and that they were born on the same day. Okay, this is not, you know, Debbie May, our character is kind of in the show is older and Liza is younger.
Anyway, they're born on the same day. Liza's got to the other side, you know, and is okay, what now? And Maggie is like, "Oh, wait a minute. " And so, a lot of what happens is the two of them kind of talk like and Liza's like, "Why would you Oh my god. you have no idea.
Like you're going into this tunnel and it's going to be a long time till you come out. And Maggie's like, I need to do this. I want to do this. You did it. You got, you know, having children, you got a lot of joy and a lot of meaning out of that, and I don't want to miss it.
So, I think, you know, 40-year-old women today are often at one end or the other, and it's a very different experience. It is. It is. And I speaking of the book, I really appreciated because again my kids are getting closer to the age of the daughter whose name I'm now going to forget in the book. And when she comes home from Africa and she's like, you know, the mom makes this the lasagna and she's doing everything she wants and she's like, you know, she's setting the time aside and she's going to spend this time with her daughter because her daughter must need her and she really wants to be there even though she's got her own hopes and dreams and wishes and boyfriends to go see.
" like the and not only can she not eat it, she's like disgusted by it. " And it's and it's so true because even now my son's going to come home for Thanksgiving and I'm all excited and I'm there's a new movie that I wanted to watch with him and I'm thinking we're going to watch this movie and he is probably not going to do this thing. much as he misses me, much as he loves me, that's not, you know, he's got his own life. And so therefore, I it's just a big it's a big transition for everybody. And I love that you mentioned that's a big theme of the book because that's I got a lot of that out of the book, too.
" Yes. And that and that guilt and like they own me kind of kind of thing is a big part too because they do they do you are at their literal becking call. Yes. Yes. It's it's it's an awkward time because it's also kind of the end of your of being a mother in that caretaking way, you know, so you don't want to rush it too much.
But I know I know if my son calls me in like the middle of the night, he goes to school in Hawaii. So if he calls me in the middle of the night, I'm like, I have to take this call. Like he wants to talk to me. This is a special time. This will not happen forever.
So there I am. But it is. Yeah. So you want to hold on, but also it's it is women have a different kind of transition, I think, than men. But back to what you were saying before about putting yourself in these uncomfortable positions.
A lot of people are uncomfortable and then they're uncomfortable that they're uncomfortable and they're like, I think I just rather not. And even if it's something really small from getting in the pool in the summer and you're like, I just I don't I just don't want to. It's uncomfortable. I have to get wet. The water's cold, etc.
Then I got to dry off, take a shower. It's a it's a there's a lot of tasks. I'm a very lazy person, so I'm always like, I got to look at the benefit to risk, you know, it has to outweigh. but how do you keep the momentum going for yourself to continue to be uncomfortable because you've been being uncomfortable for a while? I have I have been uncomfortable for a long time.
Well, you realize, you know, once you do it, it's like anything like that that there are rewards on the other side that are worth, you know, the discomfort is temporary that you move through it and you get to another place that's really valuable, which is, you know, a new kind of confidence, you know, all these new things that you learn and become proficient at. And it just, you know, it's funny what you said about swimming because I've become a swimmer in the past few years just in my first time in my life. And every time I get in the pool, I feel that every time, you know, every time I sit down and every single day when I start to write, I feel the same thing, which is like, I can't do this. Oh, it's horrible. Oh my god.
I And so I've started to do this thing where I get into the pool and the first lap I say to myself, I'm swimming. I'm swimming. I'm swimming. Just to, you know, get myself that you're in the thing that you're uncomfortable with. And you don't need to do any more than that, but just let yourself feel uncomfortable.
That's if you can get the length of the pool feeling uncomfortable, you'll feel less uncomfortable and then you can progress, you know, and you can let other things in. So, it's it's it's a passage. It's not a it's not a wall. Quick pause to invite you into the ROAR community. ROAR is all about amplifying women's voices, and you can be part of it.
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Every share helps bring more women's stories into the spotlight. All right, let's get back to the episode. So, it sounds like you still get uncomfortable. That part doesn't really get easier, but you learned how to get through the discomfort. That the habit of being discomfort has become easier.
Did I say right? It's not a permanent state, I think, is what I'm saying. You know, it's like I think when you if you don't let it stop you, you can get to the other side of it. You still feel it, but there's something valuable in the other side of it that you're not going to discover unless you go through it. How do you keep doing it now?
Like, are you are you planning other new uncomfortable things besides continuing your onewoman show and Jubilarian? no. I think that the onewoman show and is pretty much enough for right now. Well, I was like, is there skydiving in your future? I mean, honestly, being naked in front of a crowd is some people's worst fear in the world.
Like people have dreams about being naked in front of a crowd. They have nightmares about it. So it's technically you really could do anything. Yeah. Yeah.
I you know then as I said the naked part is not central to this for me. It's more you know the emotional nakedness is scarier to me. So I have never written about my life in this intimate and honest way. You know, I'm I've been a novelist. I've been cloaking everything in character and story.
You know, I've been inventing a lot, but in the invention is the reality. so it's much scarier to me to write about myself. So, honestly, to Can you tell us actually a little bit about that? " How does it differ? You're talking about your life.
What kind of stories are you including? Yeah, I'm I'm talking about my life, but you know, in I mean, it's the whole thing is stories that I really have never told anybody. I mean, it's really a lot of the stories that feel that have always felt from different parts of my life so shameful that I couldn't talk about them. there's it's funny the Catholic thing, you know, there's something in the the section about childhood where I was, you know, my friends and I pulled down our pants and just kind of looked at each other, you know, and we would do this and I would be like, "Oh my god, this, you know, I was so consumed with shame like this is you're going straight to hell. Oh yeah, I know.
I know this is wrong. I know it's a sin. I don't know which sin, but there are all those sins with words in them that I don't really like. Adultery and covet. So, it's like I have to confess.
And I actually went to confession. And I do this in the show. I actually Janice Mafe, who produced the New York shows, had this idea that I should kneel down as I did it and do my confession, which I remember in, you know, in vivid horror. Oh my gosh. And I said to the priest, I did bad things with my friend.
" Like my head exploded because I never like imagined that there was any other kind. And then he's like, and of course the perspective that we have now in priests, right? He's like touching. And I'm like touching. Is that even a thing?
It's so innocent. It's such an innocent like memory of that. " Like I you know, you just have no idea what's going on and that anything could be any worse. Yes. Yeah.
I mean, I remember seeing written on the sidewalk fu ck and coming home and asking my father what that meant and he slapped me across the face and it was the only time that had you know my father was a very gentle guy and it was the only time that happened but that was the only response. So it's like okay that's bad. I don't know why, but it was like there was this whole misty world of bad things that I didn't understand and I didn't know like why are they hiding like anyway I always had the feeling that there was something big that the adults were hiding and you and I was I was right. You were right. You were right.
But I love that's the kind of story that So and everything is about your body and the things that have occurred in around and to your body in your 72 years. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. So very, you know, it's the vulnerability.
You did really say that very well. And the the nakedness and the vulnerability emotionally and literally. I think that's that's what happens. And the emotional literal I mean the emotional psychic nakedness feels much riskier to me and you know than the physical nakedness. Well, even in you know your I I was trying not to give everything away or anything away.
Not that I've seen it, but even in the Oprah article you wrote something about sexual partners and talking reminiscing with your friends and one of them said something like or a few of them said something like I only remember the date rapes. And it's like those are first of all that sentence alone they really should have just pulled that out as like the thing to make you read talk that you don't have to be naked. You could just say that line would also get people's attention. But that's so telling about women and you know our lived experience and where we are in this universe and how the universe responds to us. But I would imagine that hearing you tell these kinds of stories, not saying that's your story, but anything in relation to those, what was the what was the audience reaction like?
What did people say to you afterwards? You know, I I feel immodest saying this, but people were blown away. They really were. You know, it's like everything that I hoped would happen happened. You know, I mean, people laughed a lot because it's funny, but you know, people cried at the end.
I didn't cry at the end, but I was afraid I was going to because the last line would always make me burst into tears. U, I won't tell you what it is. I have No, don't tell me. Don't tell me. " And I've never I also have never told anybody.
And now I'm feeling this commonality. you know, one of my fantasies of what could happen with this show. I was imagining I think pract in practical terms this would be hard, but I was imagining like this audience and the when I did the show there were hundred people there. Okay. And you know the things I talk about like the date rapes, you know, I was imagining like little flags in front of everybody or hair ties or hats or whatever.
It's like, okay, if you've been date raped, put up a red flag. You know, if you if you were a kid and didn't when you were a kid, if you didn't know you had a vagina, which I didn't know. I just thought it was a crack, you know, nothing underneath like put up a white flag, you know, put up and I mean, everybody would have a flag and I would guess that many people would have many flags because these are these are things that have not been spoken or revealed or discussed, but they're really universal. Yes. And I think the flags are a great idea.
Can you do that? And I think I think that's a great idea because it also would make everybody in the audience feel so comforted like not just for you but you know it's not just two people in isolation who have had these experiences. It's women. It reminds me a little bit of the me too movement and how you know you'd be reading these stories and you're like you read some horrible story and then there's a million people like me too me too me too. It happened to me too.
Or and that was specifically about sexual assault, but all of these stories that you're mentioning especially in if you were raised with families who are like a little bit more closed about your body or about your body's place in the world. I think it would get so much so much universal appreciation from all the people watching it. I think that would be great. I love the flag idea. And you know, you talked about someplace, one of the things that you wrote talked about the idea that this could be a revolution, almost a revolutionary.
And I know you just said you're being immodest and this is a really big goal, but why not? What would that look like to you if that kind of revolution gathered momentum? Yeah. You know, I've been thinking about that a lot. You know, how do you unpack this and what else can it be?
as I I'm writing a new draft, it needed to be longer anyway. it was like 4550 minutes and I knew it needed to be 60 to 70 minutes to be a commercial play. and I have a new framing story and you know, I mean, in terms of reinvention, I'm much more comfortable with rewriting and reinvisioning now than I used to be and expanding. But it's kind of like it always feels to me like yes it's a piece it's it's a piece that's meant to be spoken and it can also be something written but what else is it you know I went to this amaz I've been you know educating myself and seeing a lot of one-person shows which is you know not something that I ever focused on before I saw what the constitution means to me. Did you see that?
Oh well it's amazing. Heidi I'm here in South Jersey I don't get out much but I really on HBO or Netflix or something. There was a video version of it made and it's really great. Oh, good. there's another one called Down on Your Knees about [ __ ] that was a sensation which I saw with my daughter in the city couple years ago.
and that one was very popular. and I've been watching Mike Burbiglia who's really great at, you know, telling Cath Catholic boy really great at telling these stories that kind of unfold in this elliptical way. I really admire him. I love David Sedaris, you know. I'm like worship and I have seen and I do absolutely I love him.
I love him. Yes. So all these things feel like more like new models for me, you know, like like that's my role model. Not like I think I'm going to be that good, but that's that's where what I'm aspiring to. But anyway, I saw a oneperson show in LA by a writer named Ed Schmidt, and he lives in Brooklyn, and he does these performances in people's homes.
So, you buy a ticket. Yes. he's not young. He's like 60ish. you buy a ticket and they don't tell you where it is and you just you know a few days before they give you the address and you show up and there are 12 people sitting around a table and the table is full of objects and he comes out and he is a character named Edward.
So it's kind of like an alter ego but from a different era. I don't it's that part is you know for a name person a little bit confusing but and then each audience member hands him an object one by one and that's determines how in what order he tells the story if that anyway I love that I loved it isn't it great I mean I love it broke the paradigm you know and it felt like I don't think I think I would be less comfortable getting naked in a room with 12 women, you know, tw just 12 people sitting around a table. But I it made me have this fantasy of 12 women sitting around a table each. There's something called a Jeffersonian dinner. Have you ever heard of that?
No. You're exposing me to all kinds of new things. Tell me about that. One, you have to have one. So, a Jeffersonian dinner is when you This is something Thomas Jefferson really did, and I think he did it with like political events of the day.
So, he would invite people to dinner and there would be a topic like you know the economy or something. I'm picking something really boring, but I did this once on my birthday and the topic was birthdays and everybody had to come prepared with a 10-minut story, 10 minutes tops about anything to do with birthdays. And you go around the table and each person tells their story and then we all discussed and it and everybody showed up grumbling about this. this is stupid. I don't want to do this.
And it was like the best dinner I have ever had. You know, each person came at it in a very individual direction. everybody got to know each other in this really intimate way. Anyway, so I was imagining a Jeffersonian dinner like this where each woman would tell an intimate story about their lives, you know, their bodies over their lives and they would have to take off one thing. So, it doesn't, you know, you don't have to take off your bra.
You could take off your sock or, you know, what? but I thought that sounds interesting. I don't know. I think that does sound interesting. I love that idea.
I love I Well, I almost like you could you could almost have it up there with you. See, now I'm going to just start brainstorming. have that as, you know, another portion like a they're sitting there and they can plug in. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm a theater minor. So, you know, these ideas have to come out somewhere. I am so glad I met you.
I think I'm a wealth of information. Well, you know, all these things you did, even the names like Nameberry, I feel like there's just a throughine for you. Do you feel like there's a throughine for you in your work? You know, for a long time I didn't. I was like, what, you know, how do all these things connect?
I would actually meet a lot of people who would think that I was two different people, especially when my name was Pamela Redmond Saturn, which is a much more, you know, a singular name. " Okay, that seems incredibly unlikely to me. But I think less unlikely than that, one person would do two such different things as you know names and novels. But my friend Kate here in LA who was going to produce the show in LA, it's like oh I know what the through line is. It's identity.
And I'm like that is brilliant. You know that is yes that's it. The through line is identity. The through line is reinvention. and the throughine for me as a creator is doing something in a different way than it's ever been done before, but in the way that it should be done, you know, in something that I think the goal is like something that's both original and natural.
Original and natural. That's like the holy that's that's the holy grail of creativity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I think you're do I think you're doing it. I have I have one last question for you, but I could talk to you all day. You're gonna be like, you're so great at this. Oh my god. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. I have to tell my mom. you now you wrote your first novel at 50 and I don't mean to keep h hemming and hawing on this or I don't mean to keep coming back to it, but you also were divorced after 33 years. And I'm imagining is it around the same time?
No, no, I was 61 when I got divorced. And that was not coincidentally the age my mother was when she died. So yeah, we could have had a whole episode on that. Yeah. So this year I wrote my first novel 55 we launched name which you know was going from writing books to creating a website.
I mean we had no idea what we were doing and 60 is when younger got sold to TV. So yeah. Well okay. So it actually is even better. " Even accepting the fact that it might I mean, many people write novels and they're in many drawers across America and that's it.
And you've actually had a not only a successful novel, but it was turned into a TV show. If you could look back and talk to that woman who was at the time raising kids, married, not doing the dream that you had, what would you say to her? I think the thing I would say is don't give your power to other people. You know, I was so fixated on when you say is it any good, right? I was so fixated on other people judging whether my work was good or not that I couldn't even I couldn't judge it for myself.
And it, you know, it very much relates to the old woman naked, sex, relationships. You know, I was always fixated on, oh, does he like me? Is he having a good time? You know, I wasn't I wasn't able to judge it from the inside out. And I would say that's something that only recently I've really understand in a really deep way.
It's like how do you like what do you have to do to get that feeling in yourself that certainty is like I know this is good and I don't need anybody to tell me anything. And that takes a long time to get to. But I feel that way now. I work a lot harder on my writing now than I ever have on in my life. You know, rewriting the again and again and again and really like just looking for that feeling of excitement and certainty that this is this is it.
And you don't need anybody else to tell you, you know, it's like you don't need anybody to confirm that feeling. And I wish I'd been able to get to that when I was young. in all kinds of ways, in my writing and, you know, in my in all kinds of ways. Well, I love it and I love that you did it now. And I and you, you know, the la the last thing I'll say is in the Jubilarian also, you wrote, which everybody's obviously going to have to read because I've read because I keep talking about it, but you wrote how to be n I think it's how to be 90 or Yeah.
and how you have a model like a model for it and I think everybody needs that, right? We all need to see how other people are doing it and how it can look and it doesn't have to necessarily look like, you know, packing up your bags and heading for the hills. It can look like reinvention and daring and creativity and confidence and doing something new. So, I thank you for, you know, how to be 72 because you are knocking it out of the park. So, thank you.
I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Danielle. Thank you. Like, this has been really good for my ego. Thank you.
Wait till we hang up. No, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. It's been great.
That's it for today's episode of Roar. I hope you enjoyed Pamela's honesty, humor, and hard one wisdom as much as I did. Next week, we're heading somewhere totally different, but deeply needed. My second to last guest of the season is Lisa Field, the founder of Lucky Star Art Camp. If you've ever fantasized about running away to the woods with a bunch of creative women, eating gorgeous food, making things with your hands, and remembering who you are outside the chaos, well, Lisa basically built that place.
Our conversation is all about what happens when women step out of their everyday lives and into a space that's actually designed to refill them. Before you go, an FYI, you can grab a free copy of the Roar Rolodex. It's a curated list of women centered resources worth knowing right through the link in the show notes. It's completely free. It's packed with the tools, communities, and voices we talk about on the show.
And so, it's also live and it'll be always added to. If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a rating, share it with a friend who'd love Pamela's work. It helps Roar reach more women who need these conversations. Thanks again, and we'll see you next week.
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