Maggie Rose Crane is represented by the interviewer's Pump Up Your Book Promotion, an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book promotion.
Prior to publishing her book, Amazing Grays: A Woman’s Guide to Making the Next 50 the BEST 50 (Regardless of your hair color!), Maggie Rose Crane spent a decade crisscrossing the country conducting leadership and life-skills workshops for women. Born on the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation, she has experienced many life passages common to her peers: college, marriage, divorce, single motherhood, career changes, and creating a blended family. At the core of her message, shared through writing, speeches, and workshops, Maggie exposes the fears and anxieties that haunt many midlife women – and reveals how to mindfully navigate the turbulence with wisdom, perspective and practice. She also serves as a guest editor for the Dove Real Women/Real Beauty Campaign website. (www.dove.com). Born and raised in Wisconsin, Maggie now resides on the West Coast.
Thank you for this interview, Maggie. Can you tell us a little about yourself and how long you’ve been writing?
I am a leading edge baby boomer, learning to age gracefully in a society that seems not to appreciate or honor the aging. I spent nearly 10 years traveling across the country conducting leadership and life skills workshops for women. I loved the work, but it was an exhausting travel schedule. This exhaustion, coupled with menopause and the Big 5-0 ultimately led to a burnout. I stopped traveling, and took on the administration of a home-based business – in effect pressing the “pause” button on my life. It was during this time that I allowed my hair to go gray, went on a 3-month spiritual retreat, reexamined my values and decided to write a book!
Do you write full-time?
No. Until I began to chronicle my experiences through midlife, I had never written anything more significant than a few speeches and workshops. I dabbled with writing my book for the first couple of years, and took it on as a full-time endeavor during the final year. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the writing process – except for those days when I didn’t!
At what point in your life did you make up your mind you were going to become a published author?
While I was on my three-month retreat I learned how ineffective and exhausting it was to try and control my life and make things happen. When I surrendered my “self” to the quiet, life would come to me. It was during one of these quiet, still moments that the idea to turn my midlife musings into a book occurred to me. I just sat with it for a while. When I returned home, I put together an outline and began to write. It took about three and a half years from inception to completion. All but the last year was very part-time.
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