nancymclelland0

“If at eighty you're not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal…, if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin' and keepin' power…if you can be turned on by a fetching bottom or a lovely pair of teats, if you can fall in love again and again, if you...

Letizia Mowinckel was an American diplomat’s wife who served as her friend Jacqueline Kennedy’s fashion scout in Paris and who procured the pink Chanel suit that came to symbolize the first lady’s resolve in the wake of her husband’s assassination Letizia Mowinckel died on Feb. 14 in Rome. She was 105. Though she never played style adviser for anyone else but Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Mowinckel maintained her own streamlined elegance well into her 100s, even after she moved into a facility managed...

I don’t know what gave me the nerve to apply to Billy Collins’ poetry workshop in January 2014, part of the prestigious Key West Literary Seminar. The “best writers of our time,” boasts the brochure, “ join readers from all over the world for four days of readings, conversation, lectures, panel discussions, and parties that add up to one of today’s smartest and high-spirited literary gatherings.” Then there was Key West, a hallowed ground for famous writers: Ernest Hemingway, Elizabeth...