Are you the kind of reader who loves to dip into a short story while eating your cereal or waiting at the doctor's office? Do you prefer fiction or true stories? Or do you like to open the day with an inspiring poem or two?

In When Last on the Mountain, readers can have it all. This antho-logy speaks to the full range of human experience with many voices, all of them having only one thing in common: The writers have lived a significant measure of years on this earth—at least 50—and know how to offer up their lives with honesty, humor, courage, and grace.

Who are these writers? In the editors' preface, we learn that "Older writers sent us 2,100 submissions from across the country, from Qatar and Canada, from Mexico and Israel, from Switzerland, England, Japan, Australia, and a small island in the Pacific." These writers cover the full spectrum of the wisdom years, ranging all the way into their 90s.

Among the 79 offerings that comprise the final selections are two from the Kansas City metro: Susan Peters, of Lenexa, and Janet Sunderland, of Kansas City, Mo. Both women are considerably over 50 and are experienced writers. Both are college teachers. Both participate in the Kansas City Writers Group, which meets weekly in spring and fall. Go figure the odds on that one!

Sunderland's story, "News of My Death," is an amusing anecdote of falling asleep in her car while waiting in front of her son's apartment, only to be awakened by four policemen who received a call about a woman "either dead or drunk."

Peters writes an equally amusing story detailing the glories and mishaps of a post-age-60 wedding in Las Vegas, her friends around the world tuning in by Internet and her younger sisters deciding to show up in Mom's vintage wardrobe, "where polyester went to die."

Other stories present a more reflective tone. "One Morning," by Zan Bockes, lovingly describes details of an ordinary morning with an older couple and the small anxieties that appear at a moment's notice: "I watch your figure diminish and disappear, holding this moment tight like the money in the dream—how, if I hold on tight enough, I can keep it when I awaken."

We also receive poignant glimpses of the inevitable losses that come with age. Sharon Charde's poem, "Asking," ends with "I clean my grief / like a wife / scrubbing her pots."

Tom Hanson, in "The Wisdom of Fifty," adopts a bittersweet tone about the betrayals of his aging body: "I am growing older, smaller, weaker. My vices have all run off in search of a younger, more vigorous man. I am learning to live with certain inevitabilities I would rather not have to face. Grudgingly, I acknowledge them. And maybe this—which is hardly the Holy Grail that I years ago set off in search of—is the real wisdom of age. Acceptance. Acceptance of everything."

The title story, however, affirms that aging is about far more than acceptance. It is about savoring each and every one of life's pleasures as they come, as well as treasuring the knowledge that tomorrow will bring not only wisdom and acceptance, but hope and joy. "When Last on the Mountain," by Kaye Bache-Snyder, describes the fear-tinged exhilaration that comes with a downhill ski run on a snowy mountain slope, ending with these inspiring words:

"One day, I will write my last downhill run, not on snow, but on paper. Not today. No. I dance, stop, dance, stop, dance, dance, dance down the mountain."