What This Is About
Most retirement advice is written for a couple with grandchildren on the way, a church around the corner, and a hometown they never left. Many of us built our lives differently.Gay people often arrive at this transition with fewer ready-made scripts for what comes next. I write about the questions money cannot settle: friendship, chosen family, purpose, pleasure, belonging, and how to make a life that feels larger than a former job.There are excellent people for the money part. I’m not one of them.
Start with my
Substack essays
How The Golden Girls Taught Me to Quit the Achievement Habit
Four women in a Miami kitchen helped me see that a life can have shape without a career giving it shape.
Am I Back at the Costume Rack?
Coming out handed many of us a costume. Old age may be trying to hand us another.
When the Parade Marches On Without You
What happens when work stops reflecting your worth back to you, and you begin to hear music somewhere else?
Rainbow Clubs Directory
I had no idea 55+ communities had LGBTQ+ clubs until I saw a Facebook post about one. So I went looking for a list.There wasn’t one.So I’m building the first National Directory of Rainbow Clubs at 55+ Communities. I’ve become a Rainbow Club detective.What I’ve found is that clubs are tucked inside communities, often with no website and no way for someone to know they exist before moving in.So far, I’ve verified about two dozen in a country with thousands of these communities. Maybe the clubs are rare. Maybe they’re invisible, which isn’t the same thing.Either way, nobody should have to move somewhere after retirement and start doing the math again about who it’s safe to tell. I can’t find them all alone. If you live in one, know one, or want to start one, help me.
My Exhale
As a teenager, I worked at a New Jersey restaurant called the Feathered Frog. Yes, that was its real name. One day I saw the school bully, who called me the f-slur in the halls constantly, talking with the manager. That night, I was called into the office and told not to come back.I spent the next forty years making sure I was so good at my job that I would never be in that position again. Now it's time to dismantle the armor I spent decades installing.I'm 57, a professor and director of academic engagement and experiential learning at New York University, where I teach writing and research and help students test possibilities and build lives beyond school. I'm also the author of eleven novels from Big Five houses. As Philip William Stover, I wrote The Hideaway Inn, the lead title in Harlequin's first LGBTQ romance line, Carina Adores.Now I'm preparing for a new transition. I'm writing a book about gay men, retirement, and who we become when the job title stops doing so much of the talking.
Your Encore
I’m working toward certification as an Associate Certified Coach through the International Coaching Federation and developing a coaching practice for gay men navigating retirement and what comes next. I'm taking on a few clients as part of training.If you would like to know more about coaching with me, send me an email. I’d be glad to hear where you are.
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