IT'S TOO LATE FOR ME

Really?

Laura Ingalls Wilder

First published in her mid-sixties, Wilder is probably best known for her "Little House" series. 

There are museums dedicated to her, schools named after her, and even a TV show based on her books. 

So why did Wilder start so late? 

It took years of hardship and struggle before she came to a place in her life 

that allowed her to focus meaningfully on her stories, with help and encouragement from her daughter.

 When experience and creativity combine, stunning stories of depth and love result.

Raymond Chandler

 

In 1932, at age forty-four, Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer 

 

after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression.

 

Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth in progress at his death was completed by Robert B. Parker) -- all of which have been made into movies.

 "The Big Sleep," his first novel, launched a successful and popular career. 

 

He is best known for his mystery novels about hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe. 

 

During his career, he won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America and wrote scripts for such films as "Double Indemnity" and "The Blue Dahlia."

 

 

 {Photo courtesy of Andrew Reeves-Hall}

 

Richard Adams

 

This English author made a career in the British Civil Service, 

 

and he did not publish his first book, "Watership Down," until his early fifties.

 

 Like the famed "The Wind in the Willows," "Watership Down" began as a story he told his children. 

 

 He spent two years writing the manuscript and was turned down by multiple publishers before finding Rex Collings. 

 

The book has sold over 50 million copies worldwide.

 

Mr. Adams gives me hope that one day THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS will become popular.

http://www.amazon.com/BEAR-TWO-SHADOWS-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B004MDLWD0/

James A. Michener

 

In his youth, this author traveled around the country by boxcar, worked in carnival shows, and visited all but three of the states before he was twenty. 

 

He then went on to a career in academia and textbook editing. He could have stopped there, but he didn't. 

 

Michener's first book wasn't published until he was forty, 

 

which makes him a young whippersnapper compared to the other authors on this list! 

 

"Tales of the South Pacific" won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was later re-imagined as a Broadway musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. 

 

 Michener worked on over forty books during his career, writing vigorously until he died at age ninety.