WRITERS OVER 40 ROCK!
Should those of us in our 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond, content ourselves with literary obscurity? Who are your favorite "over 40" authors? What substantive piece are you working on? ANSWER THE POLL and help me compile an IMPRESSIVE list to fuel our over-40 ambitions!
Ambition. It's the one thing the writers featured in The New Yorker's Summer Fiction issue seemed to have in common, which I find ironic because I've been trying to learn these last few years to be less ambitious, less driven, to be less about striving and more about thriving. So this summer's newsletter is dedicated to things that help us thrive. Not the least of which is one another. Wishing you a brilliant summer solstice season!
Comments
So, from my file of famous late bloomers:
1. Edith Wharton published her first novel, "Valley Of Decision" at 40, and as we all know, that wasn't her best work.
2. Laura Ingalls Wilder became a columnist in her forties but didn't publish her first novel until her sixties.
3. Richard Adams bestseller "Watership Down" was published when he was in his fifties.
4. Henry Miller didn't publish his first novel, "Tropic of Cancer" until he was 44.
5. Frank McCourt won the Pulitzer Prize for "Angela's Ashes" -- he was 66!
I could go on. Let me know if you want more. Take that, New Yorker. You might have shut me down in my twenties but I'm ignoring you now.
It was only after the kids left the nest (or flew the coop, as it were), did I begin. It is in our family's blood to write and yes, I do believe that.
Writing wasn't something I harbored until I "had time." It wasn't even on my radar until after 40.
I know I have a long way to grow in my writing and am encouraged each time I write, and read the works of other authors and essayists. I know I can do it!
The encouragement we get from Page and other writers absolutely motivates us to keep on keeping on.
I'm curious, how old the NY Times writer is who penned his opinion?
Age is a number. Don't stop 'till your number's up!
Barbara Kingsolver (55) and Carlos Fuentes (81) are my two all time faves and they both truly write better with age and both still write with youthful passion. Fuentes is Mexican, and in his culture, as you probably know, artists of all genres are revered as they grow older. We need to get a clue.
Donna
PS
The whole age thing that our society is obsessed with is disheartening. I sense that people feel discarded after a certain age, especially when I observe the faces of the elderly.
And Isak Dinesen was over 40 when she wrote Out of Africa...May Sarton didn't publish until she was 60 (Journals of a Solitude) ...There are others that may come I am sure....Perhaps we need to look at the more 20th and 21st century women authors to find the over 40 productivity...
another thought...Your note really struck me because famous French writers have said that no one writes with substance until after 40! Cultural perceptions differ! (Also in French tradition - c'est a quarante ans que les femmes sont belles = It's at 40 that women become beautiful...
http://wardsix.blogspot.com/2010/06/ward-six-list-of-ten-over-80.html
Page - I absolutely loved "In Search of Kinship" but I have no idea how old you were when you wrote this.
I want to thank Donna Hickey for her thoughts/words regarding our American culture being obsessed with youth - disheartening.
Lindy in the Sonoran Desert
Well here's my reply to the New Yorker. I like their investigative journalism but have never thought much of their fiction or poetry choices. so HA!
What do they know that we don't?? More importantly what do WE know that they don't?? I wouldn't want to be the author that wrote that over 40 baloney. They have a pretty grim future ahead of them. Maybe theiy're already there adnout of ideas. Here! You can have some of mine!!
makes me wanna get my shoe out! (as my nanny used to say.)
Love, Cat
What an interesting theory, but then it's just a theory and would need to be proved through the scientific method otherwise it is meaningless.
Mary Hagen
when she began her writings.
Doug Pepin
The magazine, their views & articles give off the vibes of urbane, arrogantly youthful elitists. Just my opinion . . . and this just confirms it.
Even Hollywood is turning away from its decades of sexist and age discrimination. Good storytelling is good storytelling whether the author is 16 ot 76. Lots of people on the rolls of WWA and RWA proving that!
--Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables at age 60.
--Robert Heinlein wrote these classics after age 40:
• The Man Who Sold the Moon (age 43)
• (Screenplay) Destination Moon (age 43; NASA folks say this movie
made space travel a real possibility)
• Stranger in a Strange Land (age 54)
• The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (age 61)
Raymond Chandler wrote:
• The Big Sleep (age 51)--later a Humphrey Bogart classic
• Farewell, My Lovely (age 52)--Filmed twice
These were the first two Phillip Marlowe novels
My screenplay Faithful won the Southwest Writers Screenplay Competition when I was 61; I began it at age 57.
Eric
Am in Amsterdam visiting Dave's family.
Grandma Moses didn't even start painting until she was in her 70s so....and wasn't it Mark Twain who said, "there are lies, damn lies and statistics..."? According to the NY Times awhile back, the chances of getting married over 40 are about the same as the likelihood of getting hit by a meteorite....I got married at 43...
I'm glad you aren't buying into the culture of fear...
Regards,
Kit Brown-Hoekstra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7xBLvMIBZU
At 63 I am still writing (badly, but writing...) and I will one day produce that long awaited book. Have a super day with a better year ahead.
Love, Camille