Virtual Authors Series presents: The Second Story: When the Life You Built No Longer Feels Like Enough by Shari Caudron, M.F.A. '05 Start the new year with a thoughtful conversation about new beginnings, reflection, and rethinking the traditional idea of resolutions, featuring author Shari Caudron, M.F.A. ’05. Through her work and writing, Shari will invite us to consider the possibilities of growth, reinvention, and what comes next. In The Second Story, award-winning author Shari Caudron explores what happens when the life you worked hard to build no longer feels like enough. At sixty-one, with a successful career, loving marriage, and comfortable life, Caudron found herself restless and searching for something more. What followed was a deeply personal—and often funny—journey through aging, grief, therapy, reinvention, and the lifelong pressure to keep improving herself. Part memoir and part inquiry into how we make meaning from our lives, The Second Story examines the stories we inherit, the identities we outgrow, and the possibility that fulfillment may not come from becoming someone new, but from finally accepting who we already are. This is her third book. A special thank you to our moderator, Leslie Rubinkowski, Director of the M.F.A. in Nonfiction in Goucher’s Graduate and Professional Studies. The low-residency program combines the flexibility of online learning with the community of in-person residencies and will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2027. Book Description If you’ve ever woken up in the middle of the night and wondered, “Is this all there is?”—you’re not alone. At sixty-one, Shari Caudron has everything she’s worked for: a meaningful career, a loving marriage, a home in the foothills of Colorado. But beneath the surface, something is missing. The harder she tries to fill the void, the further she drifts from herself. When a personal growth workshop cracks something open, she can no longer outrun the truth: the life she spent decades creating no longer feels like her own. The Second Story is an honest, often wry account of what happens when the strategies that once helped us succeed—proving, pleasing, performing—stop working. What begins as a search for how to age well becomes a deeper exploration of how to live well. More than a midlife memoir, The Second Story is a companion for anyone who has ever felt lost inside a life that looks fine from the outside. It’s a story about letting go of the narratives that shaped us so we can finally stop striving and start living. Meet the Author Shari Caudron is an award-winning author, journalist, essayist, and teacher whose work explores identity, meaning, and the stories that shape our lives. Her new memoir, The Second Story, is a psychologically probing, often wry exploration of identity, aging, and the stories we outgrow.