Despite what you might expect, many emerging writers are not so young. In this issue, we review Maris Morton's first novel, the winner of the CAL Scribe Fiction Prize, A Darker Music. The prize is for writers over 35: Maris certainly qualifies, as a vivid and active writer, formerly an artist and teacher, making strides into her 70s. When asked in an interview what her advice would be for other emerging or aspriring writers, Maris Morton said:

Don’t give up! You’ll get many rejections but you must develop a thick hide, and learn to profit from criticism.

There are many reasons not to give up on your writing, but perhaps it helps to take a little inspiration from some other late bloomers. With that in mind, here's a list of some writers who didn't achieve their literary dreams until later in life. As Scribe’s Fiction Acquisitions Editor, Aviva Tuffield, says, ‘It seems that many novelists, especially women, only find the time and have acquired the life experience to write novels later in life.’

Debra Dean wrote her first novel during her summer holidays (she's a teacher, just like Maris Morton was), finally finishing it at 53.

Mary Wesley wrote two children's books in her late fifties, but her writing career did not take off until her first adult novel at 70, written after the death of her husband.

Harriet Doerr published her first novel at the age of 74.

Laura Ingalls Wilder became a columnist in her forties, but did not publish her first novel/memoir in the Little House series of children's books until her sixties.

Children's author Mary Alice Fontenot wrote her first book at 51 and wrote almost thirty additional books, publishing multiple volumes in her eighties and nineties.

Kenneth Grahame was born in 1859, and worked in a bank all of his adult life. Although he had written various short stories while working at the bank, it was only after he retired in 1908 that he published The Wind in the Willows.

Charles Bukowski published his first novel at 49 after a lengthy career working odd jobs and then at a post office.

Richard Adams's first novel, Watership Down, was published when he was in his 50s.

The Marquis de Sade published his first novel, Justine, after turning 51.

Henry Miller published his novel Tropic of Cancer at 44.

Raymond Chandler published his first short story at 45, and his first novel, The Big Sleep at 51.

Nirad C. Chaudhuri wrote his autobiography The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian at the age of 54. He wrote a sequel, Thy Hand, Great Anarch!, at 90. He published his final work Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse at the age of 100.

Mark Twain published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn at 49. Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe at 58.

Cervantes was 43 when he published his first novel but not famous at all until he was 58 when Don Quixote Part I came out. He was 68 when he published Part II.

And there's Australia's own Ms Jolley, who was 53 when her first book, Five Acre Virgin and Other Stories, was published in 1976.

Though she's not technically a late bloomer, one of my favourite writers, Marilynne Robinson. Her first book (which we're reading together soon), Housekeeping, was published in 1980, when she was 37, and it did very well, but she didn't publish another novel (Gilead) until 2004, when she was 61. Her most recent novel, Home came out in 2008. In between, she wrote two works of non-fiction (published in 1989 and 1998).

24 years between her first novel and her second! It was a long wait for her readers, but she was patient, and wrote the work that came to her, when it came, which is, I think, as admirable as - perhaps more so than - rushing to write a book a year.

***

issue 10:04 | archives by category | archives by author: