A new start after 60: ‘I always dreamed of being a writer – and published my first novel at 70’

In her thirties, Anne Youngson wrote a book in her lunch breaks at work. It stayed in a drawer. Then she retired, wrote her debut and was shortlisted for a major award

When Anne Youngson’s agent told her a publisher had made an offer for her first novel, she was worried. “I said: ‘Don’t they want to meet me?’ I was convinced that when they discovered how old I was, their whole attitude to whether they wanted me would change,” she says.

Youngson was 69 then and 70 when her debut – Meet Me at the Museum – was published. Her first instinct was to see her age as a commercial disadvantage. “I thought they would look at me and think: ’Oh God, how will we promote this?’” But then Meet Me at the Museum was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel award, and she had to think again. Her second novel, Three Women and a Boat, was published last year. Now 73, she is midway through writing her third.

Continue reading...

from World news | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2WrOu7K