I'm not really a late bloomer to the writing hustle since I wrote and published poems, reviews, and short stories some 25 years before I turned to writing long fiction.

I was 49 when I published my debut novel, The Dirt-Brown Derby. It picked up some street cred: blurbed by Linda Fairstein, favorably reviewed in Ellery Queen and bought for the Harvard University as well as the LA libraries. I worried if I was a rarity with my first novel published so late in my life, so I did a little checking up of my own.

It turns out I stand in pretty good company, at least age-wise. The great Raymond Chandler was 51 when his first novel, The Big Sleep got published. The Mr. Magoo creater (I loved that cartoon) Millard Kaufman was a whopping 90. Whoa.

Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House on the Prairie (I loved the TV show) fame debuted in her 60s. The gritty poet Charles Bukowski also pubbed his first novel at 49. We shared table of contents in the small press literary magazines when I wrote poetry.

At any rate, I took heart and felt a little better about when my first book appeared.

By Ed Lynskey
Twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles
"Nice addition to anyone’s summer beach reading schedule."
Florida Times-Union