A card-carrying member of the over-the-hill gang, award winning high desert author and Oregon’s Poet Laureate, Ellen Waterston, engages the reader in a rollicking conversation about ageing in We Could Die Doing This: Dispatches on Ageing from Oregon’s Outback. Ranging from sacred to profane, sassy to compassionate, these lyrical short takes address everything from green burial to sex to after seventy. As poet and memoirist Judith Barrington says of this collection of short essays, “Most of us, whether of that ‘certain age’ or simply approaching it, need to listen to [Waterston’s] thoughts on the joyful possibilities of ‘the third act’; [Waterston] believes that ‘this phase of life is as rich, complex and dynam­ic as any before it.’” Caryl and Jay Casbon, authors of Side by Side, had this to say about We Coud Die Doing This, “You can bank on wickedly fresh language, original perspectives, and a rich mix of politics, nature, and dangerous opinions. After reading an essay, you will think about it. You will want to read it again.”