Valerie Fulton

My name is Valerie Fulton. I am a freelance writer and college English teacher who grew up in suburban Boston and spent much of my adult life moving from college town to college town while I attended graduate school and followed an academic husband through the stages of his career. I’ve written just about everything: poetry, screenplays, grants, scholarly articles, website copy, and magazine pieces.

I was 50 when my ex decided he did not want to be married to me anymore. Our daughter was in first grade.

Because I was out of the workforce and socially isolated for much of that time, I often feel like a female version of Rip Van Winkle — a twentieth-century woman thrust into the glare of the twenty-first century. This blog explores how to be a feminist in a post-feminist world, a mother with elderly parents, a menopausal woman in a culture that worships youth, and an outspoken New Englander stuck here in the New South.

In the summer of 2015, I cashed out my QDRO and bought a 27-acre historic compound on the Blue Hill Peninsula in Maine. For the next seven years, I’ll be restoring the buildings and grounds and renting them out seasonally. This momentous decision is going to shape the rest of my life, I hope in ways that are productive and engaging.