Recently I came across a 2015 reading challenge (which I didn’t sign up for) that had as a category “a book by an author age 65 or older.” This category prompted much discussion, as many people didn’t know any books that fit.
And, as synchronicity would have it, I immediately came across four articles about older writers.
8 Authors Whose Biggest Successes Came After The Age of 50
Not all of these authors fit the “over 65” category, but it’s still a joy to celebrate their late-in-life success:
- Charles Bukowski
- Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Richard Adams
- Mary Ann Evans/George Eliot
- Jose Saramago
- Frank McCourt
- Nirad C. Chaudhuri
- Mary Wesley
Q&A: Alan Bradley, author of Flavia de Luce series
Alan Bradley was 70 when his first novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, was published in 2009. Read here what he has to say about how his character, 11-year-old Flavia de Luce, and her story came into being.
For Writer, Talent Finally Succeeds Where Chance Failed
Meet Edith Pearlman, who “is enjoying a commercial breakthrough at 78, after five decades of writing short stories, some 200 of them, nearly all appearing in small literary magazines.”
Her latest book, Honeydew, is her fifth story collection and the first to be published by a major house.
Watership Down author Richard Adams: I just can’t do humans
From Richard Adams, 94, author of beloved children’s book Watership Down:
He began writing in the evenings, and the result, an exquisitely written story about a group of young rabbits escaping from their doomed warren, won him both the Carnegie medal and the Guardian children’s prize. “It was rather difficult to start with,” he says. “I was 52 when I discovered I could write. I wish I’d known a bit earlier. I never thought of myself as a writer until I became one.”
Retreading for Retirement 