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The Strange Surprising Deeds of Daniel Defoe
On the night of November 24, the winter wind turned murderous. It toppled walls and sent the Thames raging into cellars. Within 48 hours, it mutated into the worst storm in England’s history. Coastal...
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Edith Wharton: Downtown Abbey Dropout, Pulitzer Prize Winner, Late Bloomer
{Debra’s note: I’m republishing this to celebrate the 153rd anniversary of Edith’s birth.} “True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.” ~Edith Wharton I count Downton Abbey my...
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How Jules Verne Went from Failed Stockbroker to Father of Science Fiction
Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth. (A Journey To The Center Of The Earth) Today marks the 187th...
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Kenneth Grahame: The Late Bloomer Behind The Wind in the Willows
On a brisk autumn day in 1903, George Robinson strode into the Bank of England carrying a sheaf of papers. He demanded to see the president (“governor” in that era’s jargon), who wasn’t there. A clerk...
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P.D. James: “A writer needs as much trauma as she can take”
Nothing that ever happens to a novelist is ever wasted. ~P.D. James Years ago, on a whim, I picked up P.D. James’ Original Sin on a remainder table. I’d heard of the “Queen of Crime,” but I wasn’t into...
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The Secret Life of Late Bloomer Sue Monk Kidd
Everyone needs a God who looks like them. ~August, The Secret Life of Bees. It’s a book that could have failed, considering its thorny subjects—racism, child abuse, and maternal loss. Yet it sold more...
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Edgar Rice Burroughs: From Sharpening Pencils to Running a #Writing Empire
I have often been asked how I came to write. The best answer is that I needed the money. When I started I was 35 and had failed in every enterprise I had ever attempted. ~Edgar Rice Burroughs Edgar...
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Grandma Moses: “Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”
(September 7 marks the 155th anniversary of Grandma Moses’s birth. I’m republishing this to celebrate!) Anna Mary Robertson was born before Lincoln took office. She died the year of JFK’s inauguration....
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Why Are Some People Late Bloomers?
A good garden may have some weeds. ~Thomas Fuller Does another “30 under age 30” achievement list make you wonder if you’re doing life wrong? Does a story about a grandma who ran her first marathon in...
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Andrea Bocelli: Horseman, Winemaker, Lawyer, Late Bloomer
The Mojave desert: A warrior raises his sword. Fighter planes soar across the sky. A blind man gallops across the sand. These images punctuate the music video for Andrea Bocelli’s new album, Cinema,...
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Why Are Some People Late Bloomers? Pt. 2
In Part 1, we explored how “a good garden may have some weeds”—life’s difficulties and Later Blooming. In this installment, we examine two intriguing traits that many Later Bloomers share—wide-ranging...
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Mary Norton: A Late-Blooming Author’s Big Magic
When I was maybe four years old, my family visited my father’s eccentric old aunties who lived in a fading Victorian near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Auntie Ivy road a Harley. Auntie Dora talked...
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May Your 2016 Be Dangerously Weird
“Follow your weird, ladies and gentlemen. Forget trying to pass for normal…woo the muse of the odd.” That’s Bruce Sterling addressing the Computer Game Developers Conference back in 1991. Sterling is...
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How Late Bloomer Charles Perrault Became Cinderella’s Secretary
Once upon a time there was a gentleman who married, for his second wife, the proudest and most haughty woman that ever was seen. She had two daughters of her own, who were, indeed, exactly like her in...
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Jules Verne: Playwright, Stockbroker, Late-Blooming Visionary
“Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.” ~A Journey to the Center of the Earth Is 35 too young to be...
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What’s With Writers and Late Blooming?
According to a 2010 survey conducted by the Humber School for Writers, the average age for authors first published in book form is 42. According to Douglas Adams, the answer to the ultimate question of...
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Maria Sibylla Merian: How a 17th Century Late Bloomer Became the World’s...
In 1699, more than a century before Charles Darwin explored the Galapagos, a middle-aged woman sailed from The Netherlands to South America to study the region’s insects. Most people considered her...
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Frances Glessner Lee: How a Late Bloomer’s Deathly Dollhouses Transformed the...
She was born the heiress to a vast fortune. But in her 40s, she developed a late-blooming compulsion for crime. Not committing it, solving it. Many experts consider Frances Glessner Lee (1878-1962), a...
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The Good News About Getting Older
This article is by Jonathan Young, founding curator of the Joseph Campbell Archives. There are some things that get better as we age. On our best days, we have a kind of grace. We are works-in-progress...
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Five Things You Didn’t Know About #Literary Late Bloomer Ian Fleming
Never say ‘no’ to adventures. Always say ‘yes,’ otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life. ~Colonel Pott (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) Ian Fleming (1908-1964), the man who created James Bond was, sadly, a...
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