Naked on the Page

Description

“Daring and delicious, but also emotionally profound.”—ELLE

Jane Ganahl is one of millions of single people out there looking for love at midlife, and she’s (more or less) happy (damn it!).

Jane Ganahl is forty-nine, single, and loving it—mostly. In Naked on the Page, Ganahl chronicles the highs, lows, and in-betweens of dating at midlife, along with the professional and personal changes that come fast and furious as she heads toward her fiftieth birthday. Writer of the popular Single Minded column for the San Francisco Chronicle, Ganahl employs keen insight and lively wit as she recounts the events of one tumultuous year in her life.

Smart, funny, and always honest, Naked on the Page proves that there’s still plenty of life—and love—after youth is gone.

“Jane Ganahl captures what it’s all about to be middle-aged and single—with all its ecstatic highs and self-esteem lows. She shows us that life can be rich when you hit 50-with or without a man!”—Candace Bushnell, New York Times bestselling author of Lipstick Jungle and Sex and the City“[Ganahl’s] dating escapades are daring and delicious, but also emotionally profound.”—ELLE magazine

“Imagine Bridget Jones if she were a 48-year-old, twice-divorced American woman with an adult daughter, three cats and a new gig as a columnist writing about single life for the San Francisco Chronicle. The best part of Naked is Ganahl’s sometimes embarrassing candor. Risking ridicule, Ganahl refuses to let men and an age-obsessed culture define her sexuality. And the reader cheers, ‘you go, girl!'” —USA Today

“Ganahl is at her best when she embraces the very real and understandable contradictions inherent in being an unmarried, unattached, older woman. ‘Who am I kidding? No matter how glorious it is being single – most of the time – I do believe that human beings are genetically programmed to want to pair up. Our quest for bonding makes us do stupid, inappropriate things, alter our standards, backslide on our beliefs.’ It takes courage to tell such truths.” —LA Times

“Her perspective and insights into the romantic lives of unattached older women are fresh.” —Baltimore Sun

“For those wondering what it’s like to try to find a life partner as the years grind on, Ganahl provides a lively portrait; fellow wanderers on the road to love should find some solace in knowing that adventure need not wait for the perfect travel companion.” —Ladies’ Home Journal “Books We Love”

“Ganahl’s writing is sassy, fiery (the prose equivalent of her red hair and love of rock and roll), and many readers will nod in amused sympathy as she recounts her disastrous forays into the world of online dating or laments the difficulty of looking sexy in a sensible heel. But the book isn’t all self-deprecating humor. Reeling from the one-two punch of her mother’s and sister’s deaths and struggling to accept her daughter’s increasing independence, Ganahl tackles the bigger issues as well. Ganahl may be occasionally, infuriatingly self-defeating, but more often she’s pluck and charm personified.” —Publishers Weekly

“‘Jane Ganahl Unleashed’ is the best description of this funny, charming, moving and discreetly gossipy book by the former San Francisco Chronicle columnist. One of the most satisfying aspects of Naked is Ganahl’s realization that society has sold her a bill of goods: she has bought into the myth that it’s impossible to be happy, self-respecting and fulfilled on her own.” —Pacific Sun

“Who tells the honest-to-God truth anymore? Jane Ganahl, thankfully. There’s more than humor here, because Ganahl is as smart as she is funny and honest. The result is a poignancy about the flaws and foibles of the human heart that took me by surprise.” —Lolly Winston, author of NYT bestselling Happiness Sold Separately

“Jane Ganahl captures what it’s all about to be middle-aged and single—with all its ecstatic highs and self-esteem lows. She shows us that life can be rich when you hit 50-with or without a man!” —Candace Bushnell, author of Lipstick Jungle and Sex and the City

“Jane is a smart and snazzy and sophisticated writer with a great deal of emotional and social insight. Not to mention a contagious sense of humor!” —Terry McMillan, Waiting to Exhale & How Stella Got Her Groove

Jane Ganahl has been a journalist, author, editor and community organizer in San Francisco for 25 years. She is the author of the novelized memoir, Naked on the Page: the Misadventures of My Unmarried Midlife, which has been optioned for a TV series by TBS. Of her book, Elle magazine wrote: “[Ganahl’s] dating escapades are daring and delicious, but also emotionally profound.”

For the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, she covered everything from City Hall to pop culture. For almost five years she penned the well-received “Single Minded” Sunday column about the unmarried life; it served as the backdrop for her memoir. For her outspokenness, MSN.com named her to its Singles Hall of Fame, noting: “Jane Ganahl is not only a keen observer of single life – she’s also a champion of it.” She has chaired panels at the Commonwealth Club and elsewhere on her subject matter.

Her work can now be found regularly on Huffington Post and Match.com, and has appeared on Salon.com, Rolling Stone.com and in various magazines from Book to Parenting to Rolling Stone. She has been awarded by the Society of Professional Journalists for her work.

She edited an anthology of women writers entitled Single Woman of a Certain Age and contributed essays to two other anthologies, including the recent Single State of the Union. She also co-directs Litquake, an annual festival of Bay Area literature that annually draws more than 350 writers and thousands of fans of the written word.

In what little spare time she has, she organizes The Last Supper, a monthly dinner salon in San Francisco for writers, artists, filmmakers and others in creative fields. Her cherished daughter lives in LA so she goes back and forth frequently.

US

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