Authors Answer: Deborah K. Shepherd
Authors Answer Q&A #609
Author interviews almost always focus on questions regarding an author’s latest publication (and that’s great because it’s how readers discover new books!) but sometimes it’s fun to ask authors to talk about their lives beyond the book they’ve just written. Authors Answer (started as a blog in 2020, moved onto Substack in 2025), is an attempt to give authors space to wax eloquent about the other influences on their writing. The questions posed here move beyond the formulaic classics like, “What books are on your nightstand?” or “What book inspired you to be a writer?” and even “You’re having a dinner party….which three authors (dead or alive) do you invite?” There are 20 standing questions. Authors pick FIVE that they want to answer.
Are you an author? Visit the Questions page to learn more about participating.
Today’s post features Deborah K. Shepherd
Deborah K. Shepherd’s memoir, An Old Man’s Darling, about her age-gap first marriage, is just out from Heliotrope Books. Her novel, So Happy Together, was published in 2021 when she was 74. Her essays have appeared in Oldster Magazine; Fauxmoir; Motherwell Magazine; Herstry; Eat. Darling, Eat; Persimmon Tree, and more, and her Covid-themed essay was a winner in the Center for Interfaith Relations 2020 Sacred Essay Contest. A retired social worker, she spent much of her career focused on the prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault and the provision of services to survivors. The mother of two and grandmother of two, Deborah lives in Maine with one husband and one sweet, jaunty rescue dog.
Instagram: @dkshdw74
Facebook Deborah K. Shepherd, Author
What period of history do you wish you knew more about?
I wish I knew more about the history of the United States between World War I and World War II. This was the era when my grandparents emigrated (separately) to the United States; they met and married; my parents were born; and, as I note in An Old Man’s Darling, my memoir about my age-gap marriage, my first husband grew up. While I’m pretty well-versed in our family stories, it would be helpful to learn more about the background in which these stories unfolded.
Favorite non-reading activity.
No contest, this would have to be hanging out with Ray, our 15-pound chihuahua/beagle rescue. My (second) husband and I have shared our lives with a number of beloved dogs in our time together (and the ashes of the ones we’ve lost are on a shelf in the closet, waiting to be mixed with ours when we die) but Ray, our first small dog, is the most clever, intuitive, charming and loving. I don’t know how he survived on the streets of Houston before he was picked up as a stray and luckily was placed with the perfect foster family before we adopted him and he was transported to us in Maine. He spends a lot of time hanging out on our laps, and sleeps in our bed, of course. His antics keep as laughing; his favorite words are “lunch,” “dinner,” and “chicken”; and he is adored by the people we visit every Thursday at a local nursing home. He is unfazed by wheelchairs and other adaptive equipment and climbs right into as many laps as will have him. Not sure how we got so lucky (especially since we found him online) but I will be forever grateful that we found each other.
Is there another profession you would like to try?
When I was growing up in the suburbs in the 1950s, I was enrolled in ballet lessons and took them for years, despite the fact that I was clearly not cut out for it (I pointed my left foot while everyone else was pointing their right). But for years, I’ve had a not so secret desire to be a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Alvin Ailey dancers move so beautifully and athletically. What a pleasure it would be to move through life that way. (See “What brings you great joy?, below).
What brings you great joy?
Watching “Revelations,” Avin Ailey’s stunningly choreographed paean to African American cultural heritage fills me with feel-it-in-every-cell-of-my-body joy. I dare anyone to watch a performance of this magnificent creation—especially the finale, “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham”-- and not want to jump up and dance. I’ve seen the troupe perform nine or ten times in person over the past 40 years (and many, many more times on video) and this joy comes over me every single time I hear the opening blues, gospel and spiritual notes of the score. On one occasion, I was attending a performance with my daughter (I was in my 50s at the time), and before it began, I said to her, “In my next life, I’m going to be an Alvin Ailey dancer. I don’t care if I’m male or female, Black, Brown or white, gay or straight, I just want to dance.” A man sitting in the row in front of us turned around and enthused, “Girl, you don’t have to wait for your next life!,” which is how I found myself trekking from New Jersey to New York City every Saturday for the next six months to attend Ailey classes for non-professionals. I was the oldest person there by a couple of decades, and I didn’t always execute all the steps correctly, but I moved freely and joyfully, and that counted for plenty.
What piece of clothing tells the most interesting story of your life?
There is a maroon madras Jones New York skirt hanging in my closet (its coordinated maroon blouse was relegated to the rag bag years ago). It’s over 50 years old and I haven’t worn it in ages. It’s faded and no longer flouncy. It droops, but I can’t bear to get rid of it. As I relate in my memoir, of the years between the time I began an affair with a married man 34 years my senior, and the time when we were free to marry, “…in the border town of Nogales, Mexico, I spent $10 on a lacy Mexican wedding dress, bought in breathless anticipation, sure our wedding was imminent, as Bill’s efforts [to file for divorce] seemed to be making leaps and bounds kind of progress. It hung, pristine in its plastic garment bag, in one closet or another for eight years, while I waited and whined and wheedled and wept and finally gave up hope. By the time we were free to marry, we had lived together for seven years, I had gestated and birthed and nursed two children, and the Mexican wedding dress no longer fit my post-baby body. So, nine years, four months and nine days after our first coupling, I pulled my fanciest un-fancy outfit out of my closet. The outfit said I cared enough to put on something special, but it didn’t scream ‘wedding’.”
Endnotes!
This newsletter is a passion project started by me, Elizabeth Rynecki, to try to help shine a light on new-to-me authors. I am also an author (and a documentary filmmaker and podcaster) and if you want to learn more about me, you can visit my website or read my personal newsletter, Ink Trails: A Chronicle in Creativity.
I’ve never made Authors Answer specific social media accounts, but you can find me on Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky.