Kickass Boomers
Kickass Boomers
Ep#215: She Writes Everyone Else's Story But Won't Tell Her Own, Meet Author Grace Sammon.
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ABOUT GRACE SAMMON:
Grace Sammon is an award-winning author, educator, and radio host whose work centers on
storytelling, reinvention, and voice. Recognized in Who’s Who in Education and Who’s Who in
Literature, she is the recipient of the 2025 Indies United Award for Inspirational Women in
Literature, Media, and Journalism. Her debut novel, The Eves, marked a major career
reinvention and earned critical acclaim. She is also the former host of the multi-award-winning
radio shows The Storytellers and LAUNCH PAD. Grace is the author of eight books, including the
LAUNCH PAD series and the forthcoming novel The Reliable Narrator (May 2026). She lives on
Florida’s west coast with her husband and a small herd of imaginary llamas.
Learn more about Grace at www.GraceSammon.Net
Contact her at: gmsammon@gmail.com
Follow her on Facebook: grace.sammon
Follow her on Instagram: GraceSammonWrites/
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Welcome to Kick Ass Boomers, giving you the motivation and inspiration you need to make the most of your later years. Whether you're still in the planning stages or you're several years in, we'll share stories from boomers who refuse to act their age and continue to live a life inspired. Let them show you how being old can be new if you know what to do. With your host, Terry Lorbeer.
SPEAKER_01Hello and welcome to Kick Ass Boomers. My guest today is Grace Salmon. Grace is an award-winning author, educator, and radio host whose work centers on storytelling, reinvention, and voice. Recognized in Who's Who in Education and Who's Who in Literature, she is the recipient of the 2025 Indies United Award for Inspirational Women in Literature, Media, and Journalism. Her debut novel, The Eaves, marked a major career reinvention and earned critical acclaim. She is also the former host of the multi-award-winning radio shows The Storytellers and Launchpad. Grace is the author of eight books, including the Launchpad series and the forthcoming novel The Reliable Narrator. She lives on Florida's West Coast with her husband and a small herd of imaginary llamas. Welcome, Grace. How are you today?
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much for that lovely introduction. It's great to be with you. I'm good. How are you today? I'm good too. It's a good day in Florida. Both of us are in Florida.
SPEAKER_01Both in Florida now, so it is a good day. So and the sun's almost always shining, which I love. So, Grace, tell us your story. Like what got you into wanting to write to begin with? And then what made this novel so important to write? Because I think there's a lot of messages in it that are really, really good and important. So tell us a little bit of background and then tell us why this novel at this time.
SPEAKER_02So I think I've always written from the time I used to write stories about what my brothers did to me and try to get them in trouble with my parents. Uh, you know, I grew up in this being a boomer. I grew up in this idyllic little town on Long Island. But I think in terms of writing, I always used to write. And I think every job I ever had, I wrote. So this is my eighth book coming out, but my first three books were on education. And my field was working in education settings in the high schools across the country. So I wrote three different books about that, and then I thought I was done. I really did. I was 59-ish years old. I um no longer was an active parent to my adult children. My mom had passed away. I wasn't married at the time, my dad was elderly, and I didn't have any of those roles that I grew up in. And, you know, there were so many role models when we were growing up of, you know, Donna Reed and Ozzie and Harriet and all of these different families. And not that I think we have to be picture perfect because I love to write about flawed characters and troubled families. But I was very curious about what did it mean to be without roles, without being a mother of a mother needing to mother small children? What did it need mean not to be a wife or even a daughter? So I wrote a book called The Eaves, which is about a woman who thinks she's done. And she's pretty much given up on everything, her looks, her ambition, her career, until she meets this group of older women and they range from their 70s to their 90s, and they're colorful women and women of color, and she starts taking their oral histories. And when their stories are told, everything changes for Jessica. And what happened is once my story got told through the book, everything changed for me. I did a wonderful radio show with a woman, this goes back six years ago, with a woman named Gail Carson, and she had a radio station called SOB Radio. Sponky Old Broad Radio. You, you and she would have been great friends. So we did a wonderful radio show together, and she called me the next day and said, You need to have your own radio show. And I said, No, I'm done. I just wrote a book about being done. You read my book, I'm done. And she said, Grace, apparently you didn't read your book because your authors are telling you you are not done. And that was for me the transformative moment, Terry. I wrote the three books on writing, publishing, and marketing your book. I had two award-winning radio station radio shows. And then, quite honestly, I burnt out again and thought I was done. And then all of a sudden, the reliable narrator landed in my lap. And it's a story about a woman who hides behind other people's stories. She's a ghostwriter. Her name is Darby Small, and she's a ghostwriter who is hiding behind other people's stories because she doesn't think she has one of her own, and she doesn't know how to tell the one she does have until her vivacious, amazing best friend contacts her and says, I'm dying. And you and I have a story to tell, and you need to write it. And thus the reliable narrator was born, and it launches May 5th. So I'm very excited to share it with you and your audience.
SPEAKER_01That's great. Yeah, that sounds, and it sounds like the book is all about secrets that people hold on to and pass down through generation. And I'm sure that's still going on today all the time. So this book sounds like a very valuable book to maybe when people read it, they can say, Yeah, I got to get that secret out. Why am I dying with these secrets? Why am I holding on to secrets? We don't need to in today's society. There's nothing anybody cares about anymore. I don't care what happened, you don't need to hold on to the secret.
SPEAKER_02So much stronger when we leave live our authentic self. Uh, you you mentioned, you know, holding on for generations. I also love to write intergenerational stories. So Darby in this book has a huge issue. Her mother silenced her story when she was 12 years old. And so Darby has been living with that generational being silenced. And there's some horrible tension between her and her mom, which I also loved playing with in the story because I wanted people to understand Teresa as well. Teresa is only 35 at the time that Darby has this uh abuse issue, which she silences. But we don't think of our moms, you know, as only 35. We think they're our moms, they're our champions, and we want them to be and they should be, but they're also very human. So there are many messages in this story: uh stories of friendship, stories of resilience, stories about, you know, how do we handle end of life?
SPEAKER_01And that's a big one. I mean, now boomers, we're facing that. We have to think about it, you know. What in fact, you know, we've signed all kinds of paperwork so that my kids have everything they need if anything happens. But one thing we didn't discuss is we're gonna be cremated. But my kids now live everywhere. So, do you want the bodies embalmed until you can come and say goodbye? That's a discussion I have to have soon because that we didn't talk about. We talked about everything else but that. And I guess they assumed that's the way it would be, but I need to ask them do I just like if something happens to my husband, do I just send him off to be cremated, or do you want me to wait? There, you know, with today's society, things are so different. So you really have to address those questions.
SPEAKER_02You do, and you know, as an author, we do lots and lots of research. So one of the things that I had to research in the reliable narrator was I didn't know how Phoebe was going to die. I knew that she was going to die. She announces very early on, I'm terminally ill. So I had to look at hospice that, you know, it takes place in this beautiful area of Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is the lush North Valley. Well, when I was doing my research on New Mexico, I found out that New Mexico was a right to die state. And Florida is not. But I didn't know. I have family that lives in New Mexico, and I didn't know that New Mexico was a right-to-die state. So then I had to balance what you would do if you had the right to die versus die naturally, if you will, through hospice. So there's a lot of that as well. But I can tell you, because I'm also a hospice volunteer, have been for many years, that if someone passes, they can just tuck them away in a cooler for a couple of days until your family gets here.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's good. That's good. Because that you'd be, yeah, one's in Germany, one's in Atlanta, one's in California. They're all over the place.
SPEAKER_02So you can just tuck I without sound, I hope I'm not sounding at all insensitive. Uh, the the the people from the crematorium can come and keep you literally on ice until your family members get it.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's good because you know, otherwise you have to go through the whole embalming process, which is expensive and not good. So, well, that's good to know. Yeah, and it's fun, funny you mentioned Albuquerque. My oldest daughter had a very good friend that was dying in Albuquerque, and she went, I think, spent the last six weeks with her at hospice as she was dying. They were very close and she didn't have any children. And so my daughter spent those last six weeks taking care of her. And no, she was at the hospice, but you know, holding her hand and giving her some, you know, peace. And uh, and she was in a lot of pain. So when you're in pain, I can see why you might want to speed things up because you know you're going anyway. And if you're in a lot of pain and the pain medication isn't working anymore, but I mean, I was so proud of my daughter for doing that. That's really hard to do.
SPEAKER_02We'll we'll have to get her a copy of The Reliable Narrator. It's interesting because as different people read it, as my beta readers have read it, you know, some people really resonate with the friendship story. Others say, Boy, it's a cancer story. Others talk about it's a mother-daughter story. Other people talk about it's an end-of-life story. So there are lots of pieces in it, but uh, you know, thank God for your daughter and her friend, we'll have to get her a copy of The Reliable Narrator.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she would like that because you know, she was much older than my daughter. So, you know, she just said, I can't leave. I have to stay here. I have to stay here till she's gone.
SPEAKER_02So that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was very nice. So, what else came out? What else did you realize writing the book? Things about your own life that popped out to you as you're writing this book.
SPEAKER_02That the woman who said to me six years ago, Grace, you not listening to your characters was very, very wise. Because I think I didn't really. I'm a I'm very authentic. You can ask me absolutely anything. But I also don't live a very public life. You know, I it's not like I keep my life totally segmented, but I don't necessarily lead with what's going on in my family, for example, on my social media. I keep my social media is very much about engaging with my audience, talking about my work, uh, some personal things, but I don't I don't live my life on my socials. But one-on-one, you can ask me pretty much anything. But I think what I realized from listening to Darby and to Phoebe, the characters in my book, was that some truths are not hidden. They're just waiting to be claimed. And I there are parts of my life that, you know, personally everybody knows what's gone on. For example, I was sexually abused when I was a young child. So that was a nugget for part of Darby's story. Now, what happens to Darby within that is not what happened to me. But when I was playing with the idea of a ghostwriter, which is what I really wanted to do, what does it mean to be a ghostwriter? Um, why would you tell somebody else's story instead of creating your own? I kept on getting stuck at why is Darby not telling her story? So then I had to create the world in which she wasn't allowed to tell her story. So the things that occurred to me in the writing of it were we all have a story, whether it centers on abuse or whether it centers on glorious things or just the everyday traumas of everyday life. We have a story to tell. And when we tell that story, and when we claim that story, I think the world opens to us not only in terms of possibilities, but also in terms of the genuineness of our relationships with others. And as we age, the genuineness of those relationships, I believe, becomes more and more important as we lose friends that we may have been closer to, as we lose family members. I want people to know who I am. And I think that the reliable narrator taught me some of those things again about things that I believe. At the back of my first novel, The Eaves, there's a list of living lessons that Jessica just has to learn over again because she's so, so broken. And as she meets these older women, you know, she writes things down just like be kinder than you need to be. Little life lessons. And she writes down several of them. And then when I wrote The Reliable Narrator, that same image came back to me of Darby is learning all over again. So she writes down things that she calls lessons in visibility. Like, how are we really seen? And one of them is um, speak even when your voice shakes. And I love that. You know, obviously I wrote that, but for those of us who are authors, we go, wow, Darby just told me this.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02And it very much in our head, you know, and uh something I think many boomers feel, and uh Darby writes this down and said she says, You can be present and still feel invisible. And that's true. I know so many boomers who say, you know, I was just at a family gathering and I'm not sure anybody knew I was there. That's terrible.
SPEAKER_01They just feel I don't feel invisible, so I have a hard time, but I know a lot of boomers do feel it. They do. I never have felt that even as a young person, and I still don't, but it's a big problem with boomers. I know it is.
SPEAKER_02So I have a list in the back of the book, you know, one of them for people who are interested in writing, whether they write it in their own bedroom just for themselves, is you know, a blank a blank page isn't intimidating, it's an opportunity. Right, right. So I I like this idea that I am learning and cataloging as I go what I want to remember in terms of how I want to interact with others.
SPEAKER_01Right. Oh, that's so interesting. And we do all have our own stories, and it's really not funny, but my brother passed away last April from cancer, and I didn't know he resented my parents all these years. He died resenting my parents, and you know, I'm one of 11, so it's a big family. And you know, I'm finding out how the other brothers and sisters feel about my parents, and I love my parents, and I thought they were great. Not all of the kids did, and I'm like, I just could. And I said, Why didn't you ever say anything? He never approached my parents and told them, well, what happened is he he had learning disabilities, and we were we all went to the Catholic high school, which was a tough environment. He never would have made it through the four years to go through high school with them. So my my mother's sister had a uh restaurant and she had a place to keep him where he could go to their schools and learn some kind of a um um uh what do you call it? Um cooking trade. Yeah, a trade. So, but he felt as if my parents got rid of him because they didn't want him, which was not at all the case. She felt that if she didn't do that, he would never make it through that four years of school, and it would have been detrimental in the long run. So she sent him up there and he had a great life there. There were some problems, you know. Like he lived above the restaurant, so whenever they needed him to work, you know, he might have had a date that night and they'd say, Sorry, I need you to work, you gotta work. So, but back at home, meanwhile, we were all working all the time, contributing to so he didn't understand that either. And it's a shame that it didn't come out till he was in his 70s, he died it like right after he was 70. So it didn't come out till later in life because we would have said, You gotta talk to mom, she'll tell you why she did it. It wasn't to get rid of you. So, but he felt that rejection his entire life.
SPEAKER_02It's so hard to have these conversations, and uh I frequently talk about with the Eves, it's the book that is about the conversations we wish we had with our parents if they were still here, and we wish we would have with our children if they were ready to listen.
SPEAKER_01They have to be ready. It's true. Absolutely, absolutely. So, do you have anything else planned after this book comes out in May? What's your next step? Oh no, I'm done. No, you're not. You're not done. I can tell you're not done.
SPEAKER_02No, I I'm not done. Um, I'm working on another novel right now. Uh, it's called Honestly David. I'm not writing as much as I should because I'm trying to get a reliable narrator out the door, but I am not done. I did learn that I am not done. And so honestly David is about a woman who is in love with a pathological liar. And the tagline there is because love changes everything except the truth. So true. Oh my gosh. But it's also about how do we love flawed people? And you know, I write these flawed characters, and David in the novel is charming, charming, charming, charming. Everybody's gonna love David. Yep, but they don't see that he's a pathological liar. And so it's very much a story about how do we love flawed people and with an understanding that we're all flawed. And then the other thing that I'm working on is I'm a member of the Women's National Book Association, and that's a hundred and uh it was founded in 1917, and that organization began before women had the right to vote and before the women had the right to own bookstores and sell books. So there is a very vibrant South Florida chapter, which is very active on the east coast of Florida, and I'm expanding it with a bunch of other authors to the west coast of Florida. So we're gonna do a lot of programming, we're gonna do some shared programming, some Zoom programming. I'm really excited about that. And I have started to do some guest hosting uh to see whether I want to go back into radio. So it's an exciting, busy, existing, exhausting, exhilarating, right? All of the things.
SPEAKER_01Yep. But as exhausting as all of this is, I think it does keep us younger, it keeps us more relevant. And if, like my husband's a couch sitter, he sits on the couch and watches TV all day. Now he is 80, but how many more years does he have sitting around watching TV? Yeah, you know, you're you're slowly dying if you're sitting on the couch. The more you can be out there and involved, and and we're all social beings, so you've got all those social outlets as well, and they're really, really important. So I'll be making more um friends here in the villages. And the villages has a very vibrant writing community, they have lots of different writing groups, and I think they have two times a year, they have um open um book sales where all the writers have their table with their books, and you can go around, talk to the authors, get the book signed. It's really exciting. They do a lot of great things here in the villages. So I'll definitely be joining that. I've never written before, but I am gonna write. I have a little short story in my head, so I am gonna write a short story, and then who knows from there?
SPEAKER_02Wonderful. Yeah. I I think it's funny. We talk about acting our age or looking our age, and there was just an article in the paper recently about how someone, someone famous, Jimmy Kimmel or somebody was famous, for saying, Oh, you look great for your age, as if we should look a certain way or we should act a certain way. And I think that uh we are as a generation redefining what that means. So I don't know that there's a should look or a should act. It's this is this is what 72 and a half looks like.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, and this is what 75, soon to be 76 looks like. Fabulous. And I've already battled cancer and had a hip replacement. I might need the other hip replaced, but I'm raring to go. Nothing, nothing should stop us. It really shouldn't. You get through it and you move on. Okay, what's next? You know, that's the way you have to be if you want to live a long, happy life. You know, sitting in a chair or on a couch won't do it. So so it sounds like you've got a lot of things up and coming, which is great.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01So where can my audience find you if they want to buy your book? Where's the best place to go? Do you have a website? What do you want to share with them?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So I have a very vibrant website. It's grace salmon.net, not.com, grace salmon.net. And it said salmon like the fish, but it's spelled S-A-M-M-O-N. So grace salmon.net, there are playlists and book club uh downloads and recipes and uh all of my radio shows. So go to go there and find out lots. Sign up for a newsletter that I don't yet have, but someday might. Uh follow me on Facebook at grace.salmon and invite me to your book club. Invite me to your senior living place. I love to interact with audiences. It'll be a conversation. You'll come curious, but you'll leave inspired, I hope.
SPEAKER_01Well, there you go. So maybe I'll invite you to the villages for something that they're the authors are doing. We'll see, I'm sure. And plus, I eventually am going to have some kind of get-togethers where I invite some of my guests to come and do a presentation in the villages. So I might have five different guests come and speak to a group at the villages. You know, once I'm more settled and I have time to get things acclimated, but that's in my head for the future. So you'll definitely be invited to that.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you. There are so one of the gifts of being an author is connecting with author, other authors. So there's this wonderful author, uh, Amazon bestseller. She's got a play that's about a book that's about to become a Broadway musical. She's got another one that's just been opted for Netflix. Uh, her name is Barbara Davis. She lives in the Orlando area, not too far from you. She's amazing. Tracy Anderson Wood, New York Times bestseller, leaves around, uh lives around uh the Tampa area. Uh, lots of people. Uh Linda Rosen, who lives down on the other coast from me, who started this one Women's National Book Association, lots of great people.
SPEAKER_01Uh oh, that's I'm so glad I moved to Florida because up north I wasn't able to do that. And and there's a podcasting convention every January in Orlando. So when I have to fly from home, it got to be really hard. But since I was here, I could just drive. So there's so much more for me to do. I'm so happy that I moved to Florida. It was never in my head, I never thought I would move to Florida. I'm like, it's too hot, I don't want to move. And then all of a sudden, something clicked. And I had a friend who lived in the villages, came to visit, and it's beautiful here, and here I am. So, and lots of doors are opening now, but it was a difficult move, and some people just can't get through that. It I'm not gonna tell you it was easy. My husband was a contractor for 50 years, he collected all kinds of crap in our 5,000 square foot barn, and then he got sick and couldn't get rid of any of it. So it was my day. So it was a lot of work getting down here, a lot of work, a lot of I donated, I re I uh recycled, I I threw away, I did everything. I sold, I had three yard sales, I did everything, but finally it was all gone and I'm here. But it was very difficult, especially. We're glad you're here. I thought I was gonna do it at 70, but I was 75 doing it, but it's done, and I'm here and I'm excited.
SPEAKER_02So great, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, this has been lovely. I had a really great time, Grace. I can tell we're gonna be good friends and we live fairly close, so this is gonna be wonderful. So thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having me, and thanks for all your listeners as well. Continued good luck to you and your podcast, and thanks for listening, everybody. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00We appreciate you joining us for this episode of Kick Ass Boomers. For more information on today's guest, along with the show notes and other inspiring resources, buzz on over to kickassboomers.com. And don't forget to join our kick ass community on Facebook or LinkedIn to continue the conversation. Be bold, not old.