Welcome to Ramona At Midlife.

A newsletter for creatives who hate newsletters

“Don’t you read her newsletter?”

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I used to be Ramona on the playground, crying to the Heavens, “Why, oh why, have you subscribed me to…this!?”

Until Oldster. Sari Botton, whose wonderful book You May Find Yourself is featured in our film, published a piece I wrote about the resilience it took as a woman over 40 (okay, okay over 50) making my first feature.

I started reading Oldster religiously—omg it’s so much fun—clicking links, ordering people’s books, learning and feeling and growing. I love it so much. Oldster led me to a community of midlife-people (not just Gen X’rs!) who are not only not going gentle into any goodnight but laughing, making music and art, and living their best lives out loud.

Around that time, I subscribed to Ted Hope’s Hope For Film which had recently migrated to this platform and then, of course, Patti Smith. (I pretend she’s a wise aunt sending postcards from the land of poets and sometimes France). When Hope recently suggested that all filmmakers need a Substack platform, I was already a convert. Having loved theirs, I was ready to make mine.

If you hate this, unsubscribe now. No judgement. No questions. Do it.

But if you stay, here’s what to expect:

• Monthly, sometimes twice-monthly, newsletters from me and the Ramona team. Each edition will start with a piece about some aspect of the filmmaking business or the writing life including female icons, fundraising tips, notes from the festival circuit and best practices for creating community on set. My pieces will also include observations on and around the experience of being “a Ramona”—a woman ready to make room for herself, proud of who she was but entirely ready to become her best self. What if our best years are be ahead of us?

• Updates, news and inspo from our incredible team. What they’re working on. What’s lighting them up.

• A spotlight on a female entrepreneur, writer or artist over 40. This month, we’re featuring the incredible Diana Manalang, my neighbor and the caterer of our film. Diana runs Little Chef, Little Cafe, a local cafe and catering business. Upcoming issues will also shine a light on the writers whose books you’ll see Ramona read in our film.

• Occasional reposts and rants from friends and from my books, including the writing guide Nine Juicy Weeks To A (Wonderfully Imperfect) First Draft.

Oh yeah, and it’s totally free.

I will never ask you for money. I will ask you to support and amplify the stories of women over 40 and to support Ramona At Midlife by streaming the film just as soon as it’s available (more on that soon!) and/or bringing us to your community for a screening.

Spotlight: Diana Manalang of Little Chef

Diana Manalang is the owner and founder of Little Chef, Little Cafe in Long Island City, Queens, and she catered our film. Diana sat down with my assistant Lexi Arenberg recently. This is an excerpt from their conversation:

LA: Let’s talk about what it’s like to be a female business owner and your experience working on Ramona. Do you felt connected to its themes? 

DM: It struck a chord because I am pretty much prime mid-life right now. I turned 40 when they were filming Ramona. I started this journey with the cafe in my late 30s. I don’t want to say like a career switch, but definitely something new. And I’d see other people who were younger or more established … it’s definitely nerve-racking to try to compete and keep up. So that really resonated. Ramona sees her friend that Alysia plays [Gwen] and she’s a famous writer, and she kind of makes Ramona feel small for her choices. That definitely resonates, realizing it’s more a mindset than anything, because it’s allowing yourself to feel that way versus knowing that you have your own power in your own way and are following your journey. That’s basically how I perceived the movie, and I was like “Wow, that’s how I feel in my life right now”.

“…you have your own power in your own way and are following your journey.”

LA: Yeah, that’s such a great way to look at it. I think a lot of people, I know me, at a young age still feel like, “Oh, my God. She’s doing more than me. Oh, my gosh, she has a bigger job than I do”. So, it’s nice to know that we’re not alone in that.

DM: Especially because it’s omnipresent with social media…it’s very easy to get caught up in that feeling. But then I look around me and I’m like, “Dude, I brought a business to life and grew it during the Pandemic.” I may not be a social media star, I may not have millions of followers, but I still have a successful business. 

LA: Tell me a little bit about you. Where you come from. Who you are as a person. 

DM: I am a first-generation American. My parents immigrated here from the Philippines. Being a child of immigrants definitely shaped me to be my own person. I was always the square peg trying to fit into a round hole. And it wasn’t until late in my adulthood, within the last decade, that I realized it’s okay for me to be who I am and do what I do. I shouldn’t be embarrassed or feel like I should be doing something else. There is no comparison. Again, it’s all mindset. So, that’s really where I come from. I said I want to make sure that everything I do every day is something that I love and enjoy, even when I don’t love and enjoy it, if that makes sense.

LA: And what are you working on now?

DM: Everything. We just renovated the cafe two months ago. Because of Covid, we were forced to reimagine our original business model and converted everything to take-out. And then this year, with New York changing the regulations for outdoor seating, we said, “Okay, if we lose it, we should probably have some sort of indoor capacity.” So we made a very small space inside for people to come inside and order during rainy days or colder months, and we have a couple of little seats in there now. We’re gearing up to change our seasonal menu and offer different specials, and we’re still doing a ton of different types of catering on the backend so… We’re keeping busy when we can!”

Little Chef, Little Kitchen is located at 5-43 48th Avenue in LIC, Queens. If you tell her Ramona sent you, you can take 10% off a cup of coffee. And try Diana’s “Brookie’s”—they’re phenomenal!

Team Updates:

Ramona Team BTS at the Mercury Store, shooting Gwen’s Book Party, June 2022

Anthony Argento (Co-Producer) is currently producing a Netflix show from Indonesia. He did the feature Ratu Ratu Queens and will be running The Greenpoint Film Festival August 7-11.

David Alan Basche (Dr. Young) just completed work on a role in the new Bob Dylan biopic with Timothee Chalamet called A Complete Unknown and an episode of The Diplomat in London for Netflix.

Robert Beitzel (Jonah) and Zarah Mahler (Sage) are in the early stages of producing the play A Shayna Maidel in LA. After receiving rave reviews for her performance of the play at Laguna Playhouse in March, Rob and Zarah heard many personal requests from Holocaust survivors asking to keep the story alive. Zarah will release an album soon, stay tuned!

Brooke Berman (Writer/Director) just completed her newest script, Drama Club, a coming-of-age comedy set at her high school alma mater Glenbook North H.S. the year John Hughes sent his actors to observe.  

Catherine Curtin (Julie) finished shooting Jason Reitman's new film, SNL 1975 and is currently working on Almost Grace.

Serena da Conceicao (Costume Designer) is writing x-rated (“not erotic lol”) nonfiction vignettes, like sexual memoir (very different than her usual fare, dark comedy) and preparing the studio on her Hudson Valley property to become an event and artmakers’ space.

Rhea D'Souza and Aoshuang Zhang co-designed a feature Come Clean (produced by Anthony Argento). Aoshuang was the creative director of a DJ music event at Sugar Hill in Brooklyn which Rhea helped her on. The pair are selling earrings at Third Ear in Fort Greene! (@3eearing on Instagram.)

Joel de la Fuente (Carlos) is a series regular on Season 2 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon that debuts at the end of September. He also just completed a romantic comedy co-starring Alex Moffat and Kennedy McMann called Brewmance. And off to do a KDrama called, Tempest next month!

Ava Michele Hyl (Frances) completed her Broadway run in the Tony award winning play Leopoldstadt, wrapped a fun feature film, and just returned from LA, where she attended the Young Artist Academy Awards for her nomination for Best Young Actress in a short. Ava also won Best Young Actress in June at the New Jersey Film Awards.

April Matthis (Imani) greets you from the south of France, where she’s been spending the summer holiday. Next up is an independent film Clara Boone, shooting in Montana this fall, about the only recorded US trial in the Wild West where testimony from a ghost was used in her own murder trial. She plays a real historical figure, Sarah Bickford, a free woman of color who rain the water utility in the town and has a personal connection to the victim. 

Alysia Reiner (Gwen) is currently filming a show in London for Netflix that premieres in the Fall. The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed got picked up by Magnolia after a successful theatrical run. It is on-demand now. Also starting the fest run now is We Should Eat, which she stars in and is an Executive Producer.

Tara Sheffer (Script Supervisor, Associate Producer) is a Sundance Producing Fellow with Rubber Hut and participated in the producing lab in Wyoming in June. Tara’s short Scratch Off is showing at Woods Hole Film Festival and Rhode Island Film Festival in August. She was recently at the Aegean Film Festival with a short she produced, Merci Poppy. Another short Tara produced called Trapped won SXSW and Palm Springs Shorts Fest.

Scarlett Sher (Kiki) has been honing her horse riding skills and just performed as Regina George in a local production of Mean Girls for the American Dance Theatre Workshop. 

Brian Slaten (Ryan the hot playground dad) recently performed in a revival of August, Osage County alongside his wife Yvonne Woods, starring the breathtakingly wonderful Ellen McLaughlin as Violet. Brian is currently rehearsing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for the Tennessee Williams Festival in St. Louis, MO with Michael Wilson directing. Brian will be in NYC in October in a new play called People of the Book at Urban Stages.

Valerie Star (HMU Artist) finished teaching a summer course in fashion to international students at Columbia University. She has been working on her art series Love is Blind.

Kristen Vaganos (Producer, Tammy) is a series regular on ABC's General Hospital and is starring in a Los Angeles production of the play Human Error at Rogue Machine Theatre Company.

Yvonne Woods (Ramona) recently performed in a revival of August, Osage County, with her husband Brian Slaten. Yvonne is inspired by big questions: the upcoming election and an exploration into becoming an end-of-life doula. She is curious about mortality and how everything in our culture seems to run screaming from acknowledging it, let alone looking it square in the eye. Yvonne will be traveling to CT in the Fall as part of a new theater/dance exploration.

Thanks for being here! If you love this, share it with a friend!

Kristen, Brooke and Sara after the first week of production!

Love,
Brooke