Creativity in Retirement: Author Chat with Roger Roffman

In UW retiree Roger Roffman’s 2021 novel Looking Always, Elliott Sterling’s life needs a reboot. A patient’s suicide has shredded his self-confidence, his wife wants a divorce, and he is alienating their son. Elliott has lost a sense of life’s meaning, that is, until he moves and meets his 87-year-old neighbor, Milena Hodrová, a survivor of the Holocaust. A reader noted that she “really appreciated the evidence of how [Roffman] embraced living in the Pacific Northwest while having some deep knowledge about the Holocaust. Makes me want to hear him talk more about how he crafted this work.”

In this online program, Roffman will chat with fellow UW retiree-author Bob Roseth, author of Ivy is a Weed, about this and other questions. They’ll talk about the writing and publishing process, the transition from having an academic career to becoming a fiction writer, and the role of creativity and imagination in navigating life post-retirement.