Fresh New Voices?

I ran across a literary journal devoted to publishing the work of writers over 50, Passager. The heavens opened and the angels sang. I’m of an age where I can see the end of the road on the far horizon, and I’m acutely aware when I submit work that I’m competing with a horde of younger people for the publishers’ attention. I see publishers looking for ‘fresh, new voices’ and it puts me off because in our society those words are so often used as a proxy for ‘young’.

One source says most authors publish their debut novel in their 30s or 40s, and the average age of the first time published author is 36. Authors that publish a debut novel in their 20s or even teens generate a lot of hype because of their age, not necessarily because their work is better than other writers. They just managed to hit the publishing jackpot at a younger age than most authors.

There’s a website devoted to highlighting, profiling, and reviewing authors whose first major work was published when they were 40 or older. Did you know that Laura Ingalls Wilder didn’t publish until she was in her 60s? Anna Sewell wrote only one book, Black Beauty, which was published when she was 57. She died a few months later. Frank McCourt didn’t publish his first book, Angela’s Ashes, until he was 66. And look at what a huge hit that was! The list includes Isak Dinesen, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, James Michener, Annie Proulx, and P.D. James.

Fortunately, the arts are more accepting of older folks entering the field than other disciplines. Or, more accurately, older folks making themselves known as artists. Older folks just coming into their own have been artists all along. Maybe we’ve been what Julia Cameron calls ‘shadow artists’ who’ve worked in fields that let us be creative without the full-on risk of putting ourselves out there as artists. Maybe we’ve been quietly working away, honing our craft and have just gone unnoticed.

As writers, we’re all working with the same set of tools: the same elements of craft and the same words. Plot is plot. Verbs are verbs. We all have the same basic set of building blocks, we just put them together in different ways. Definitions of new include ‘recently acquired’ and ‘already existing but seen for the first time’. Definitions of fresh include ‘new’.

Making ourselves known as ‘fresh, new voices’ is a good way for we older artists to live out our retirement. Write on!