Women in a Golden State emerged during a dinnertime brainstorming session between the editors, Diana Raab and Chryss Yost. Diana had recently celebrated her 70th birthday. Chryss, a lifelong Californian, was getting close to 60 and well past identifying as one of the Beach Boys' "California Girls." We were both feeling anxious and eager to find a new project.

California's namesake, the warrior queen Calafia, emerged from a poem over five hundred years ago. A Castillian poet imagined Califia as a fierce leader, leading an army of women in a legendary kingdom. Our State's literary queens include Joan Didion and Octavia Butler, one born in Sacramento, one born in Pasadena. Many of the writers in this collection were born elsewhere, bringing outside influences with them to add to the ongoing mixtape of California literary culture. In the 1950s and -60s, television offered up Gidget or the Brady Bunch or Charlie's Angels. But then what? Where did California girls go next?

This emerged as our focus: the mythology and reality of being a woman of a certain age, especially in youth-obsessed California. This anthology invites readers to reconsider aging not as an end, but as an ongoing journey-one filled with beauty, strength, and boundless possibilities. Through a diverse array of voices and experiences, Women in a Golden State highlights the rich and varied lives and perspectives of older women, proving

that age is no barrier to achievement, creativity, or relevance.