Time of Our Lives presents the extraordinary lives of ordinary women in their seventies, eighties and nineties, challenging the stereotype of the helpless old woman who is nothing more than a burden. The first collection of its kind in Australia, it demonstrates the rich lives led by 21 women of diverse backgrounds, all born before 1946 and all of whom have achieved great things in older age.

From Mig Dann, an 80-year-old artist who worked for David Bowie and completed a PhD in her seventies, to Pauline Lorenzen, a 75-year-old Indigenous solicitor working to support women; from Robina Rogan, a boat-builder planning a sea voyage at age 82, to Rosemary Salvaris, a 76-year-old civil celebrant who has taken up orienteering, these women show that learning has no age limit. As the generation of Australian women who waved the flag for feminism enter retirement, let's change the conversation around what it means to be 'old'. Our ageing population is not a burden – it's time to celebrate the contributions that older women make to our community. Time of Our Lives also gives insights into how to ensure our own lifelong learning and live to the fullest.

Dr Maggie Kirkman is a psychologist and a Senior Research Fellow in Global and Women’s Health at Monash University. Before gaining a PhD at age fifty, she taught kindergarten children, children with hearing impairments and children with profound disabilities. She has worked at La Trobe and Melbourne universities, and her research includes women’s experiences of infertility, abortion, donor-assisted conception, breast cancer and ageing well. Maggie is the author of My Sister’s Child (with Linda Kirkman, Penguin) and the editor of Sperm Wars (with Heather Grace Jones, ABC Books).