Dotsie-- Like you, I write so that I can make sense of what I'm feeling. As Wallace Stegner says in his book All the Little Live Things, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" And because my kids and stepkids are grown up and no longer around on a regular basis, I don't worry about being totally honest on the page. My husband is both respectful of my privacy and occupied with his own work.

So Evie, while it's true you might get further with your journaling if you censored yourself less--and I can vouch for the benefits of doing so--I think Dotsie has found a good middle ground.

I'd be happy now to talk about the Defying Gravity girls.

JJ, you mentioned Maureen. At 40 or 41 (I can't remember when her birthday is), she's the youngest woman in the book. (The oldest is now 87.) I interviewed her at her home in Jacksonville, FL, and we bonded almost immediately. She and I describe it as having a "soul meld." By the end of the interview, we were completing each other's sentences. She was pregnant and had a big belly. We spent all day together, the last two-thirds of it on her bed having a picnic. During the final segment of the interview, she's sitting in her "depression chair," which she describes in the story. At the time I interviewed her, she wasn't really clear about whether she wanted to stay in her job. Yes, she'd fulfilled her dream of going to Smith College. Yes, she was joyful. And yes, she was comfortable in her skin. But her job as a prosecutor was extraordinarily demanding as well as time consuming. She was understandably worried about how she was going to juggle her work with being a new mom. The good news is that in this past year, at her request, she's been reassigned. She's still a prosecutor, but her current job is much more flexible. She seems very happy.

What else would you like to know?