January 3, 2026 • 11 mins
Life begins for Anita in 1968 when she graduates from college, leaves her family home in Brooklyn, and moves to Greenwich Village, stepping into the revolutionary heyday of her times. Against the turbulent backdrop of charged school strikes, the Stonewall Inn and Attica uprisings, and the nascent feminist movement, Anita grapples with gang violence, job restrictions, gender stereotypes, as well as the corrosive nature of familial secrets and regrets, and, ultimately, her own evolution as a woman during and after this volatile era. As she ages, Anita asks herself and her friends the question: “Did you have the life you wanted?” prompting surprising and heartbreaking responses.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's all about making a connection. Ero dot net, aarr
Oe dot net. I am a podcast listener that just
happens to have a podcast. So when I go searching
for things that I want to be entertained by, I
want to have the power of choice. Oh you do
on aero dot net. There are seventeen podcasts to choose
from a r oe dot net. Enjoy your exploration.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Good morning, he How are you fantastic?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm doing well.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I'm just so proud of you for putting this book
together because I've been a daily writer since July of
two no July of nineteen ninety nine. And the thing
is is that when I come across your book, did
you have the life? This is my kind of story?
Because this is the kind of stuff that I don't
want to say. I've preached to a lot of people,
but if you're not writing, you don't know the story.
You have an interpretation, but you don't know the story.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That's so true. What kind of books do you?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Right?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I started out as I wanted to write a book
of poetry. But when I came and you do it
for a thousand days in a row. Because I've never
seen something like that at Barnes and Noble. So then
what I did was, when I went back into the
daily writing after Ay twenty one days went by, I realized,
your poetry sucks, dude. It's the stuff around the poetry
that's got the impact. And so and that's where I
took it from.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Was.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I took it around the you know, explaining why this
piece of poetry came into being and blah blah blah.
What so about you?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
What about you?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
How did you come into this story as well? You
had to have tripped across it.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, I've written several books, and I guess I'm at
the age where I'm more reflective about my life. And
I started writing it because my husband had a woman
who came into his office and she noticed my books
on his shelf, and she invited me to her book
club that she held in her apartment in Greenwich Village
(01:50):
that she said she was meeting this group for fifty years.
So when I looked at the address of the of
her she wrote me an invitation to come to and
I noticed that she lived in the same building that
I lived in as a young woman in Greenwich Village. No,
so it started me thinking about what my life was
(02:11):
like in the nineteen sixties and seventies when I did
live in Greenwich Village and I did visit the book club,
and then I went around the village with my old
roommates from those early years, and I started reflecting on
what happened to me over those years. And I made
that into a fictional story, but you know, based on
(02:31):
a character and somewhat based on my life, but you know,
it took on its own life, and then we followed
this character through her life until she's an older person.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Oh, I was going to ask you about Anita, what
was it like to fit your feet into her shoes?
Because I mean, this is one of those stories that
people want to hold on to, not for just a
moment of reading, they want to hold onto it for
a long time so they can reflect in their own lives.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah. Well, everyone who's read this book so tells me
that they ended up analyzing their own lives. So it's
very hard not to think of yourself. And I'm happy
that that is provocative and that it gets people to think,
and I hope in a constructive way. We don't want
people to say, oh my god, I didn't have you know,
(03:20):
good life. You want them to f feel like they
should have a good life and continue in that direction.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Well, you inspired me to do a lot of research,
Andrew and I and I love that about your writing.
And the research that I went into was because I
do live in the present place of now, and I
really do, you know, I fight hard every day to
make sure that I'm in the now. And I was
quickly reminded, it's not the present place of now, it's
your presence in the now. And I'm telling you your
(03:50):
book changed me. And I've been doing this since nineteen
ninety four.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Oh wow, that's fabulous. I'm so happy to hear that.
So I'm people to think, especially young people.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, don't you love that though, about writing, that something
that moved through you is changing people out here in
this world that you don't get to see, but you
get to hear about it. You do.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
And unfortunately, you know, most of us writers work in isolation,
and we don't really get to hear about the readers
to read our books and to find out how they
feel about it. So when I do hear about it,
I'm very very excited, and it usually it usually provokes
a whole conversation about our youth and what influenced us,
(04:37):
and how we look back in ollies and how we
try to correct some of the regrets that we may have.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, your book cover is spot on to where people
are because in sitting down with Generation Alpha and Beta
and even Generation Z, they've got an attachment to the
nineteen seventies and eighties. And this right here is one
of those book covers that's going to get them. And
when you get inside the book, you did exactly what
we do in radio. Get the hook of the song,
(05:05):
get to the hook, and then you've got them.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, it's funny because I had a Zoom launch and
a lot of young people came with the nineteen seventies
headbands and bell bottoms, and it was every You are
right that young people really do relate to that era.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So now let me ask you this question. When you
talk about when they were dressed up like that, when
I see a young adult and this is once again,
this is your book speaking through me, because you're making
me want to go back and look at things. I'll
walk up to somebody who's wearing a modern day pair
of what I call elephant pants with the flares on
the bottom and stuff, and I'll ask them, I say,
do you ride a bike when you've got your elephant
(05:47):
pants on it? They go, I don't understand what you're
talking about, because in my day, in the nineteen seventies,
we did ride a bike and it always got caught
in the chain. I just want you to know, if
you ride your bike, you're asking for trouble.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Well, we used to have clips that you Yes, yes
we did, but I remember roller skates. I mean when
the roller skates just went on the bottom of your shoes.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So I mean, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, listen, young people have a whole different set of
things that they deal with, and you don't want to
be an older person saying back in the day, back
in the day, but you do want to have some
some things that you have to say that will inspire them.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Please do not move. There's more with Andrea Simon coming
up next. The name of her book, Did You Have
the Life You Wanted? It's not what you think. This
is a real story here, it's a novel. We are
back with author Andrea Simon. The way that you write,
you don't guilt trip me. In other words, it's like
you know, with a subject like, did you have the
(06:47):
life that you wanted right there on the front cover.
I don't want a motivational speaker in there telling me
you got to do this, you got to do this.
Oh my god, I'm feeling guilty, But you give me
this storyline where it's like, you know what, I can
see what's happened here. I can transition with this and
become a part of the storyline by doing it with
myself as well.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Well, I'm glad you feel that way. I would hate
to feel that I'm guilt tripping people. I'm hoping that
people will ask, and especially young people will will say, well,
maybe I wasn't going to do that, but maybe it's
time that I that I did pursue this particular thing.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
What did you learn by being with a writing group?
Because I was blessed with the opportunity to be with
Barnes and Noble on their tour for two and a
half years, to be with writing groups, and there's always
something very special, but authors and writers, it's hard to
pinpoint what it is that you're experiencing.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Well, I'm glad you asked me that question because this
is very close to my heart. I'm in presently two
writing groups, all women. The first one is that we've
been meeting for over twenty years, and it was inspired
by Madeline Mangel, you know, the author of Arinkle in Time,
who conducted writing work shops. And I didn't study with her,
(08:02):
but a lot of these people started little groups and
I joined one of them, and we're still meeting. And
then I taught a course about five years ago online
called did You I'm Sorry? Writing about your Mom Without Guilt?
And it attracted It attracted nine women all over the country,
(08:22):
and and we had you know, we did a lot
of writing about our mothers. But when the course ended,
nobody wanted to leave, so we continued to meet, and
we meet to this day. We don't write about our
mothers anymore. Although they creep into uh, they seemed to
creep into the stories, but we ended up writing up
our essays into him. We published the book and anthology
(08:45):
of our writing, and we still we still need all
the time. So these women have been my lifeline. You know.
We share each other stories, we comment on each other's
but basically it's a personal support system.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I would love to put a microphone in the center
of one of those groups and turn that into a
podcast where every week that you guys deliver something to
writers out here, because you know how it is, Andrea.
There are so many writers out here that write in
their bedrooms or the privacy of their living room, and
then they hide the stuff. And it's like, to me,
the next great book is in somebody's attic right now, right.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I know I have several of them myself. But it's
funny that you said that, especially we just recorded a
podcast four of the women from the Methods. All of
us have a book coming out in the now, so
it's very unusual to have a group where everybody's published
the book. So we're doing a little podcast and it'll
(09:41):
be out soon. But it is true that if we
knew that a microphone was listening to us, we probably
wouldn't talk, but maybe we would. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, Wow, ten minutes with you, Andrea is not enough.
We need to book another time and we need to
sit there and have that conversation. Bring on the girls,
Let's spread the word about your writing groups, and let's
get up because if people aren't writing, like Dolly Parton said,
how do you expect to share your story? If you're
not writing your story? Because somebody else will and it's
gonna be wrong.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yes, that's Dolly, she really knows what to talk about. Well,
thank you. I really appreciate your enthusiasm and it was
great talking to you.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Well, what's your website so people can find you and
when you're podcasting like this, I want them to listen
to you as well.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Okay, well, you could find me on social media, but
I have my own website wwwanreasimon dot net and it
has a pages for one page for each one of
my books that has a section on short stories and
other writings and even some photography. So I hope that
(10:54):
you know your readers will will take a look. And
there's also ways of ordering my work if that's if
that's just something that people want to do.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Wow, Well, please come back to this show anytime in
the future. The door is always going to be open
for you.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Thank you so much, and good luck with your own writing.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Thank you. You'd be brilliant today with your writing.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
All right, okay, great, and happy New Year to you
and your listening.
It's all about making a connection. Ero dot net, aarr
Oe dot net. I am a podcast listener that just
happens to have a podcast. So when I go searching
for things that I want to be entertained by, I
want to have the power of choice. Oh you do
on aero dot net. There are seventeen podcasts to choose
from a r oe dot net. Enjoy your exploration.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Good morning, he How are you fantastic?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm doing well.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I'm just so proud of you for putting this book
together because I've been a daily writer since July of
two no July of nineteen ninety nine. And the thing
is is that when I come across your book, did
you have the life? This is my kind of story?
Because this is the kind of stuff that I don't
want to say. I've preached to a lot of people,
but if you're not writing, you don't know the story.
You have an interpretation, but you don't know the story.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That's so true. What kind of books do you?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Right?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I started out as I wanted to write a book
of poetry. But when I came and you do it
for a thousand days in a row. Because I've never
seen something like that at Barnes and Noble. So then
what I did was, when I went back into the
daily writing after Ay twenty one days went by, I realized,
your poetry sucks, dude. It's the stuff around the poetry
that's got the impact. And so and that's where I
took it from.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Was.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I took it around the you know, explaining why this
piece of poetry came into being and blah blah blah.
What so about you?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
What about you?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
How did you come into this story as well? You
had to have tripped across it.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, I've written several books, and I guess I'm at
the age where I'm more reflective about my life. And
I started writing it because my husband had a woman
who came into his office and she noticed my books
on his shelf, and she invited me to her book
club that she held in her apartment in Greenwich Village
(01:50):
that she said she was meeting this group for fifty years.
So when I looked at the address of the of
her she wrote me an invitation to come to and
I noticed that she lived in the same building that
I lived in as a young woman in Greenwich Village. No,
so it started me thinking about what my life was
(02:11):
like in the nineteen sixties and seventies when I did
live in Greenwich Village and I did visit the book club,
and then I went around the village with my old
roommates from those early years, and I started reflecting on
what happened to me over those years. And I made
that into a fictional story, but you know, based on
(02:31):
a character and somewhat based on my life, but you know,
it took on its own life, and then we followed
this character through her life until she's an older person.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Oh, I was going to ask you about Anita, what
was it like to fit your feet into her shoes?
Because I mean, this is one of those stories that
people want to hold on to, not for just a
moment of reading, they want to hold onto it for
a long time so they can reflect in their own lives.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah. Well, everyone who's read this book so tells me
that they ended up analyzing their own lives. So it's
very hard not to think of yourself. And I'm happy
that that is provocative and that it gets people to think,
and I hope in a constructive way. We don't want
people to say, oh my god, I didn't have you know,
(03:20):
good life. You want them to f feel like they
should have a good life and continue in that direction.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Well, you inspired me to do a lot of research,
Andrew and I and I love that about your writing.
And the research that I went into was because I
do live in the present place of now, and I
really do, you know, I fight hard every day to
make sure that I'm in the now. And I was
quickly reminded, it's not the present place of now, it's
your presence in the now. And I'm telling you your
(03:50):
book changed me. And I've been doing this since nineteen
ninety four.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Oh wow, that's fabulous. I'm so happy to hear that.
So I'm people to think, especially young people.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, don't you love that though, about writing, that something
that moved through you is changing people out here in
this world that you don't get to see, but you
get to hear about it. You do.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
And unfortunately, you know, most of us writers work in isolation,
and we don't really get to hear about the readers
to read our books and to find out how they
feel about it. So when I do hear about it,
I'm very very excited, and it usually it usually provokes
a whole conversation about our youth and what influenced us,
(04:37):
and how we look back in ollies and how we
try to correct some of the regrets that we may have.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, your book cover is spot on to where people
are because in sitting down with Generation Alpha and Beta
and even Generation Z, they've got an attachment to the
nineteen seventies and eighties. And this right here is one
of those book covers that's going to get them. And
when you get inside the book, you did exactly what
we do in radio. Get the hook of the song,
(05:05):
get to the hook, and then you've got them.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, it's funny because I had a Zoom launch and
a lot of young people came with the nineteen seventies
headbands and bell bottoms, and it was every You are
right that young people really do relate to that era.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So now let me ask you this question. When you
talk about when they were dressed up like that, when
I see a young adult and this is once again,
this is your book speaking through me, because you're making
me want to go back and look at things. I'll
walk up to somebody who's wearing a modern day pair
of what I call elephant pants with the flares on
the bottom and stuff, and I'll ask them, I say,
do you ride a bike when you've got your elephant
(05:47):
pants on it? They go, I don't understand what you're
talking about, because in my day, in the nineteen seventies,
we did ride a bike and it always got caught
in the chain. I just want you to know, if
you ride your bike, you're asking for trouble.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Well, we used to have clips that you Yes, yes
we did, but I remember roller skates. I mean when
the roller skates just went on the bottom of your shoes.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So I mean, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, listen, young people have a whole different set of
things that they deal with, and you don't want to
be an older person saying back in the day, back
in the day, but you do want to have some
some things that you have to say that will inspire them.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Please do not move. There's more with Andrea Simon coming
up next. The name of her book, Did You Have
the Life You Wanted? It's not what you think. This
is a real story here, it's a novel. We are
back with author Andrea Simon. The way that you write,
you don't guilt trip me. In other words, it's like
you know, with a subject like, did you have the
(06:47):
life that you wanted right there on the front cover.
I don't want a motivational speaker in there telling me
you got to do this, you got to do this.
Oh my god, I'm feeling guilty, But you give me
this storyline where it's like, you know what, I can
see what's happened here. I can transition with this and
become a part of the storyline by doing it with
myself as well.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Well, I'm glad you feel that way. I would hate
to feel that I'm guilt tripping people. I'm hoping that
people will ask, and especially young people will will say, well,
maybe I wasn't going to do that, but maybe it's
time that I that I did pursue this particular thing.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
What did you learn by being with a writing group?
Because I was blessed with the opportunity to be with
Barnes and Noble on their tour for two and a
half years, to be with writing groups, and there's always
something very special, but authors and writers, it's hard to
pinpoint what it is that you're experiencing.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Well, I'm glad you asked me that question because this
is very close to my heart. I'm in presently two
writing groups, all women. The first one is that we've
been meeting for over twenty years, and it was inspired
by Madeline Mangel, you know, the author of Arinkle in Time,
who conducted writing work shops. And I didn't study with her,
(08:02):
but a lot of these people started little groups and
I joined one of them, and we're still meeting. And
then I taught a course about five years ago online
called did You I'm Sorry? Writing about your Mom Without Guilt?
And it attracted It attracted nine women all over the country,
(08:22):
and and we had you know, we did a lot
of writing about our mothers. But when the course ended,
nobody wanted to leave, so we continued to meet, and
we meet to this day. We don't write about our
mothers anymore. Although they creep into uh, they seemed to
creep into the stories, but we ended up writing up
our essays into him. We published the book and anthology
(08:45):
of our writing, and we still we still need all
the time. So these women have been my lifeline. You know.
We share each other stories, we comment on each other's
but basically it's a personal support system.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I would love to put a microphone in the center
of one of those groups and turn that into a
podcast where every week that you guys deliver something to
writers out here, because you know how it is, Andrea.
There are so many writers out here that write in
their bedrooms or the privacy of their living room, and
then they hide the stuff. And it's like, to me,
the next great book is in somebody's attic right now, right.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I know I have several of them myself. But it's
funny that you said that, especially we just recorded a
podcast four of the women from the Methods. All of
us have a book coming out in the now, so
it's very unusual to have a group where everybody's published
the book. So we're doing a little podcast and it'll
(09:41):
be out soon. But it is true that if we
knew that a microphone was listening to us, we probably
wouldn't talk, but maybe we would. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, Wow, ten minutes with you, Andrea is not enough.
We need to book another time and we need to
sit there and have that conversation. Bring on the girls,
Let's spread the word about your writing groups, and let's
get up because if people aren't writing, like Dolly Parton said,
how do you expect to share your story? If you're
not writing your story? Because somebody else will and it's
gonna be wrong.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yes, that's Dolly, she really knows what to talk about. Well,
thank you. I really appreciate your enthusiasm and it was
great talking to you.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Well, what's your website so people can find you and
when you're podcasting like this, I want them to listen
to you as well.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Okay, well, you could find me on social media, but
I have my own website wwwanreasimon dot net and it
has a pages for one page for each one of
my books that has a section on short stories and
other writings and even some photography. So I hope that
(10:54):
you know your readers will will take a look. And
there's also ways of ordering my work if that's if
that's just something that people want to do.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Wow, Well, please come back to this show anytime in
the future. The door is always going to be open
for you.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Thank you so much, and good luck with your own writing.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Thank you. You'd be brilliant today with your writing.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
All right, okay, great, and happy New Year to you
and your listening.
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