Over 38 Too Old To Do What?

My friend and fellow Los Angeles writer Susan Josephs had a letter in this weekend's edition of The New York Times that called attention to something Charles McGrath said about age and authorship:

In his otherwise excellent profile (Jan. 27), Charles McGrath observes that Charles Bock is a “little old to be a first novelist” at age 38. Good thing Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Joseph Conrad, George Eliot, Stephen Carter, Julia Glass and the nonagenarian writer Millard Kaufman, to name a few, didn’t think they were all washed up when they turned 38.

We could go on and on with a list of authors who made their debut after the age of 38, but let's especially not forget the late bestselling author (and Southern Californian) Sydney Sheldon, who penned his first novel, The Naked Face (nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award), in 1969 at the age of 52.

(Crossposted at LA Observed's Native Intelligence.)

— TJ Sullivan in LA