Preface

According to Wikipedia, “a late blooming adult is a person who does not discovertheir talents and abilities until later than normally expected.” In other words, a latebloomer lives outside the socially-accepted timeline.

I’ve always been a late bloomer. Until my 30s, I felt compelled to do what otherpeople thought I should—especially my parents. They thought I should get out of the houseand earn a “decent” living, so I left home at 19 to study business.

By age 26, I managed the contracts department for a large aerospace firm. Every dayI wondered, Is this it? I dreamed of an exciting, creative, intellectual life, so:

» At 30, I entered UCLA to study Anthropology.

» At 32, I spent the summer in the California Channel Islands doing archaeology.

» At 34, I received an Ahmanson Foundation Grant to help Prof. Maria Gimbutas bringher final book to fruition.

» At 35, I excavated a medieval motte in Wales and a Neolithic passage tomb inIreland.

» At 36, I earned a combined BA and MA in Anthropology, with a specialization inArchaeology.

» At 38, I took up Jeet Kune Do (Bruce Lee’s martial art) and eventually became abeginners’ class instructor.

» At 40, I backpacked solo across Europe.

» At 41, I learned sword fighting from a real-life modern Amazon and co-managed anOlympic fencing center.

» At 42, I broke my foot doing a cartwheel in a stunt tumbling class (oops).

» At 43, I bungee-jumped off a bridge in New Zealand.

» At 44, I attended screenwriting school (and found I had neither the desire nor thetalent to write movies).

» At 46, I found the love of my life and got married.

And at 47, I got sick. Chronic, soul-crushing pelvic pain that still troubles me aftertwo surgeries.

The pain returned after I had my uterus sliced up by lasers and siphoned outthrough my belly button. I completely broke down. I was 50 years old, in constant pain,with 35 extra pounds, $35,000 in debt and wondering, Is this it?

What happened to that other person who was me?

Between wracking sobs, an inner voice whispered,

You can be miserable for the rest of your life or you can besomething else. Choose well—you could have another 50 years.

Another half-century of illness and self-pity, parked in front of the TV supporting thepharmaceutical industry? No way.

I wanted to be a healthy late-blooming centenarian! Yet when I searched for acentral repository of inspiration for late bloomers, I found none.

So I created my own.

My blog, Laterbloomer.com, focuses on people who started a creative endeavor afterage 35, as opposed to those who achieved recognition after age 35. I adore stories of folkswho, like me, ditched the corporate treadmill to pursue their passions.

I’ve collected 140 lives, enough for at least two more years of blogging. I plan torelease an anthology each time I reach 35 biographies—four volumes total.

For news and updates, please join LaterBloomer.com’s mailing list here, or catch meon Twitter.com: @DebraEve or Facebook.com/LaterBloomers.

And who knows—perhaps Later Bloomers: Book Five will include you!

Debra EveLos Angeles, California, USA

October 2011

Why Are Some People Late Bloomers?

Part 1: A Good Garden May Have Some Weeds

Does a story about another twenty-something internet millionaire make youwonder where you went wrong? Does one about a grandma who ran her first marathon at86 make your day?

Don’t worry. If you’re a late-blooming adult, you’re not alone. You’ve got someremarkable company. According to Wikipedia, “a late blooming adult is a person who doesnot discover their talents and abilities until later than normally expected.”

I’m not talking about people who started early and kept going, like Picasso,Kurosawa or Joyce Carol Oates. I’m tracking people who don’t realize their creative passionuntil later, or who discover it early but can’t pursue it until adulthood.

I call them Later Bloomers.

“A good garden may have some weeds.”~Thomas Fuller

Why Are Some People Later Bloomers?

I’ve identified four precedents that contribute to late blooming. In this section, Iexamine how lack of opportunity and post-traumatic stress disorder might play a part. Inthe next section, I explore the idea that “not all who wander are lost.” Many late bloomershave multiple passions and learn through experimenting.

Any one of these might have predisposed you to late blooming, but now is your timeto flourish.

Lack of Guidance and Opportunity

At age 10, Linda Bach witnessed her father die of a heart attack. She vowed tobecome a doctor so she could save other lives. At age 20, she graduated at the top of hercollege class with a microbiology degree.

She applied to medical school. During her entrance interview, she faced a panel ofsix men. Their first question—did she plan to marry and have children?

“Yes,” she answered. “After I finish school and establish my practice.” One of theexaminers said under his breath, “God, I’d hate to be your kids.” She didn’t get in.

Devastated, Linda asked her college counselor for advice. He supported the paneland advised her get married and have kids.

For Linda, young and unsure at age 20, rejection by two sources of authority sealedher fate.

Today we can discover everything about anything via the Internet. In the past,however, we depended on parents, teachers and libraries to guide us. The quality of thatguidance varied from place to place, individual to individual. For the fortunate, it opened a

path to success. For others, like Linda, lack of guidance slammed the door to theirdreams—but not forever.

Linda Bach entered medical school at the age of 46. She is currently a doctor inprivate practice. Her story is told in Defying Gravity: A Celebration of Late-Blooming Womenby Prill Boyle.

Lack of guidance and lack of opportunity often go hand in hand. Chris Langan knewhis potential, but never got the opportunity to develop it.

Despite the fact that Chris has an IQ higher than Einstein’s, you’ve probably neverheard of him. According to Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers, Langan’s upbringing handicappedhis social skills.

Langan never got a degree. He ran into a few troubles and his college took the hardline. They kicked him out. For instance, his car broke down and he couldn’t afford to fix it.He could hitch into town for afternoon classes, but administration wouldn’t let him transferto the later sessions. His mother forgot to sign his scholarship application, so they rejectedit.

Gladwell thinks that Langan could have turned things around if only he’d learnedhow to negotiate with authority figures.

But that’s just one symptom of the deeper problem Langan faced—extreme poverty.While growing up, food was a luxury. He owned only the clothes on his back. His stepfatherbeat him for eight years.

As Langan’s brother explained,

I couldn’t get financial aid either. We just had zero knowledge,less than zero knowledge of the process. How to apply. The forms.Checkbooks. It was not our environment.

Langan might as well have been raised on Mars. The guy with an IQ higher thanEinstein ended up as a Rhode Island bouncer for 20 years.

Savant Daniel Tammet speculates that an intersection between talent and delayedopportunity causes late blooming:

If you’re born in a very poor environment, where you’re not givenbooks and you’re not given good education and thensubsequently doors are closed to you that are open to others whoperhaps don’t have your talent...I could well imagine thatthroughout our history there are people who have come intotheir own relatively late in life.

Langan now raises horses and hones his cognitive-theoretic model of the universe—a grand theory of all origins. I don’t understand most of what he writes, but sometimes hegets oddly poetic (“I just had a chance encounter with a garden slug, and it got me thinkingabout time”).

But Langan will never be published in an academic journal, because he didn’t get theright credentials. His would-be peers (with lower IQs) think he’s nuts.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter. He’s living his dream—a quiet life devoted to higherlearning. And the Internet has become the great equalizer. Maybe one day Chris Langan’sname will be as recognizable as Albert Einstein’s.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Carl Jung wrote, “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” Abrave statement, but the truth is, sometimes we do become what was done to us.

The National Institute of Health defines post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as:

an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to aterrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurredor was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSDinclude violent personal assaults, natural or human-causeddisasters, accidents, or military combat.

Psychotherapy recognized PTSD in the aftermath of Viet Nam. But PTSD doesn’t justaffect veterans of war or victims of atrocities.

Children can develop PTSD after experiencing physical or psychological abuse orbullying, which has gotten out of control. PTSD symptoms can surface after learning abouta traumatic experience second-hand.

The numbness, anxiety and emotional emptiness that characterize PTSD will kill thejoy, passion and excitement necessary to bloom at all.

My father was a heart-breaking case in point. Before World War II, he was ananimator for Walt Disney Co. They discovered him when he won a drawing contest at age15. He dropped out of high school to work for Disney and apprenticed on Fantasia.

The Army drafted him at 20 and assigned him to a mobile photo battalion. Herecorded many atrocities that haunted him for the rest of this life.

Disney did not re-hire him after the war. It broke his heart. As a high school dropoutartist, it became harder and harder for him to find work. He was often unemployed.Sometimes he drank.

He passed away in 1994, a broken man. For 50 years following WWII, he neverengaged his passion for illustration or photography. You can see his early talent in Figure 1,his self-portrait at age 22.

I’m not a therapist, but I believe PTSD may be one reason why some people don’treach their potential.

Figure 1. My father, Pfc Glenn Eve, self-portrait (age 22)

Conclusion

“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.”~A.A. Milne

In this chapter, I explored the weeds that may need tending before you can bloom—lack of guidance or opportunity, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Recent media fixation on The Secret has made any discussion of hardship practicallytaboo. The “law” of attraction decrees that you author your own fortune—and misfortune.Just what kind of law blames sufferers of rape, war, poverty and other tragedies for whathappened to them?

If youth has left scars, being told to “move on” or “get over it” is just as insulting. Youmay never “get over it,” but the world needs your special gift. person has one thing theymust do that no one else can.

If this chapter rings true*, you may want to consult a therapist in order to cultivateyour gift. Or you may not. But, no matter how thoughtful or wild, forthright or sneaky,typical or unconventional, you must find some way for your gift to triumph over what wasdone to you.

Why Are Some People Late Bloomers?

Part 2: Not All Who Wander Are Lost

In the previous section, I explored how “a good garden may have some weeds”—life’s difficulties and late blooming. In this installment, I look at two intriguing traits thatmany Later Bloomers share—multiple passions and learning by experimentation.

Multiple Passions

During the Renaissance, humanism rebelled against the limits of medieval education,which privileged law, medicine and theology. The movement reignited interest in what wenow call the humanities—classics, languages, literature, philosophy, arts of all types.

Many of our greatest minds were “Renaissance Men.”

For example, Benjamin Franklin was a writer, printer, soldier, politician anddiplomat. He invented bifocals, the lightning rod and the Franklin stove. Peter Mark Rogetwas a doctor, teacher, inventor, designer and compiler of the famous Thesaurus.

Specialization is a relatively recent compulsion.

Some people are just multi-passionate, driven by curiosity and wonder. In today’sworld, they’re often denigrated.

Margaret Lobenstine calls this type of Later Bloomer a Renaissance Soul:

Renaissance Souls much prefer variety and combination overfocusing all their energies on one thing. They prefer wideningoptions by opening more and more doors, to narrowing choicesby specializing and sub-specializing.

After succeeding in one area, the Renaissance Soul will seek a completely newadventure instead of accepting a promotion, or job hopping to a higher salary. This mightbe why many of these Later Bloomers eventually become writers to explore their variedinterests and passions.

James Michener didn’t publish Tales of the South Pacific until age 40. He becamefamous for epic historical novels—Hawaii, Iberia, Poland, Texas, Alaska and Mexico—andwrote prolifically until his death at 90. But he also wrote non-fiction on subjects as diverseas The Modern Japanese Print, Sports in America and A Century of Sonnets.

Before becoming a writer, Michener peddled chestnuts, toured America by boxcar,joined a carnival, enlisted in the Army, taught English and edited textbooks. Other late-blooming authors (and their former lives) include:

Miguel de Cervantes (valet, soldier, tax collector)—Don Quixote, age 58

Daniel Defoe (wine merchant, terrorist, tax collector)—Robinson Crusoe, age 60

Charles Perrault (civil servant)—Tales from Mother Goose, age 67

Bram Stoker (civil servant, theater manager)—Dracula, age 50

Isak Dineson (coffee rancher)—Seven Gothic Tales, age 49 and Out of Africa, age 52

PD James (civil servant)—Published her first Adam Dalgliesh mystery in 1962, atage 42. She’s still writing them.

By far, writers comprise the largest subgroup of Later Bloomers I’ve researched. (Isthe fact that many were civil servants just coincidence?)

Learning by Experimentation

David Galenson is an economics professor who writes about artists.

In Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity,Galenson examined the auction prices of paintings throughout several artists’ lives. Heidentified two distinct patterns, not just in art, but in other creative fields:

Conceptual innovators peak early. They’re our prodigies and “young geniuses.”They just see and execute—on canvas, in writing, on a music score sheet.

Picasso is the classic conceptual innovator. He once said,

When I paint, my object is to show what I have found, not what Iam looking for...I have never made trials or experiments.

Other conceptual innovators include Johannes Vermeer, Herman Melville, SylviaPlath and Orson Welles.

Experimental innovators, on the other hand, are classic “old masters” and latebloomers. According to Galenson, they:

» need a visual objective;

» work slowly and incrementally;

» consider their creative endeavors a form of research;

» value the accumulation of knowledge over the end result;

» become totally absorbed while pursuing an ambitious, vague and elusive goal, yetfeel that their goal may be unobtainable.

They consider creative output “as a process of searching, in which they aim todiscover the image in the course of making it.”

Paul Cézanne is the classic experimental innovator. He created his most valuablepaintings (in terms of auction price) at the end of his life. Just a month before he died,Cézanne wrote:

Now it seems to me that I see better and that I think morecorrectly about the direction of my studies. Will I ever attain theend for which I have striven so much and so long? I hope so,but...until I have realized something better than in the past...Icontinue to study.

Cézanne isn’t the type of late bloomer I’m tracking. He started painting in his 20s(after dropping out of law school) and peaked late. I’m more interested in people who don’trealize or can’t pursue their creative passion until later.

But I believe Galenson’s findings still apply. I suspect many Later Bloomers alsolearn by discovery and experimentation.

Figure 2. Paul Cezanne, self-portrait (age 60)

Is Support The Secret?

Malcolm Gladwell popularized Galenson’s work in a much-quoted New Yorker articleentitled “Why do we equate genius with precocity?” He concluded that a late bloomer’ssuccess is “highly contingent on the efforts of others.”

Gladwell cites author Ben Fountain as his case in point. Fountain published hisshort-story collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, to rave reviews—18 years afterhe quit his law practice to write full time. During those 18 years, his wife, also an attorney,supported him financially and emotionally. She also bore and supported their two children.

Now here’s something interesting. In Outliers: The Story Of Success, Gladwellconcluded that a prodigy’s success also depends on the efforts of others—especially hisor her family.

Lucky prodigies like Bill Gates, whose parents sent him to private school and gavehim access to a computer at age 13 (in 1968), had a greater chance of succeeding than thoselike Chris Langan (from the previous section), whose stepfather beat him:

...that’s because those others had had help along the way, andChris Langan never had. It wasn’t an excuse. It was a fact. He’dhad to make his way alone, and no one—not rock stars, not

professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not evengeniuses—ever makes it alone.

I admire Gladwell for taking on the Great American Myth of the self-made man, buthe’s simplifying the obvious. Of course, both prodigies and late bloomers stand a betterchance of success if they have support. Everyone does.

Yet most of the Later Bloomers I’ve researched supported their own families and stillpursued their passion—with little outside encouragement.

Bram Stoker, for instance, didn’t publish Dracula until age 50. He married andhelped raise a son. For over 20 years, he managed the career of Henry Irving, the Victorianera’s most famous actor and a notorious egotist. (Irving refused to play Dracula on stage.)

Buster Merryfield, a beloved British character actor, married and had a daughtersoon after serving in WWII. For 40 years, he rose through the ranks of NatWest Bank, thentook early retirement at age 58 to pursue acting professionally. Merryfield got his breakseven years later, when he was cast in the sitcom Only Fools And Horses.

And the reigning grand dame of British crime fiction, Phyllis Dorothy (PD) James,took a job with the National Health Service when her mentally-ill husband could no longerwork. She retired at age 59, seventeen years after her first novel was published.

Unlike Ben Fountain, neither Stoker, Merryfield, nor James had the luxury of quittingtheir day jobs to pursue their passions, yet all three found a way—just a little later.

They were driven by some mysterious impulse, despite obstacles andresponsibilities. That’s what I find fascinating, and what I *explore in my blog.

Conclusion

“Not all those who wander are lost.”~J.R.R. Tolkien

In this section, I reviewed how curiosity and wonder drives many Later Bloomers.They have too many passions to settle. Plus, as David Galenson discovered, they often learnthrough discovery and experimentation, so achievement takes longer.

Two years before Malcolm Gladwell popularized Galenson’s work and concluded itwas all about support, Daniel Pink (Al Gore’s old speechwriter and another lapsed lawyer)reviewed it in Wired magazine. He came to a more nuanced conclusion:

Of course, not every unaccomplished 65-year-old is someundiscovered experimental innovator. This is a universal theoryof creativity, not a Viagra for sagging baby boomer self-esteem.It’s no justification for laziness or procrastination orindifference. But it might bolster the resolve of the relentlesslycurious, the constantly tinkering, the dedicated tortoisesundaunted by the blur of the hares.

In the end, though, you define success for yourself. What I love about Wikipedia’sdefinition of late bloomer—“a person who does not discover their talents and abilities untillater than normally expected”—is a sly implication that normalcy might be superfluous.

Writers

Over a third of the Later Bloomers profiled here are writers. Of the 140 lives I’vecollected, 67 are writers. Each day on the Internet, I find someone who published his or herfirst novel past the age of 40.

Why are so many writers late bloomers?

There may be a scientific explanation.

According to author Daniel Coyle, it all comes down to myelin, the grayish matterthat protects neurons.

Protects—and optimizes.

Myelin creates mastery in anything through a process Coyle calls “deep practice.”

In The Talent Code, Coyle explains how an “electric signal traveling through a chainof neurons—a circuit of nerve fibers” creates everything we do. And like anythingelectrical, insulation affects performance. For neurons, myelin is that insulation.

Deep practice involves teaching circuits to fire optimally by making mistakes andcorrecting them. The repeated firing causes more protective myelin to develop. Think ofweightlifting, where micro tears in the muscle make you stronger.

The more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizesthat circuit, and the stronger, faster, and more fluent ourmovements and thoughts become.

How does this apply to late-blooming writers?

According to Dr. George Bartzokis, a UCLA neuropsychiatrist, people grow wiser asthey grow older because

their circuits are fully insulated and instantly available to them;they can do very complicated processing on many levels, which isreally what wisdom is…Complex tasks like ruling countries orwriting novels—these are most often better done by people whohave built the most myelin.

There’s your impetus to finish that novel and join the ranks of sci-fi/horror greatsEdgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne and Bram Stoker;

historical fiction writers James Michener and Sharon Kay Penman;

children’s storytellers Richard Adams and Charles Perrault;

thriller mavens Ian Fleming and Eugenia Lovett West;

screenwriter David Seidler, poet Wallace Stevens and the godfather of all scribblersand crossword puzzle fans, Peter Mark Roget, creator of Roget’s Thesaurus!

Richard Adams: Clean Air and A Classic Tale

“There is nothing that cuts you down to size like coming to somestrange and marvelous place where no one even stops to noticethat you stare about you.”

That’s not a quote about Facebook and Twitter.

It’s from a strange and marvelous tome about a band of rabbits fleeing a housingdeveloper. Watership Down by Richard Adams (b. 1920) will be 40 next year.

But Watership Down may not be his greatest late-blooming accomplishment.

Did you know much of Britain owes its improved air quality to him?

“Are We There Yet?”

Adams conceived Watership Down in the grandest storytelling tradition—as a wayto avoid the “Are we there yet?” syndrome inflicted on parents the world over. His elderdaughter announced,

Now daddy we’re going on a long car journey, so we want you towhile away the time by telling us a completely new story, onethat we have never heard before and without any delay. Pleasestart now!

Adams spun his tale as he drove, creating plots and settings from the Englishcountryside. His girls loved the story and encouraged him to publish it.

But Adams already worked long hours for the British government. World War II hadinterrupted his college education, but at age 28, he earned a degree in Modern History fromOxford and sat the civil service exam.

For 25 years, Adams worked his way up the ladder. By the time he began WatershipDown, he managed the air quality standards department for England and Wales. BesideWatership Down, he’s most proud of authoring Britain’s Clean Air Act of 1968.

And there he was at age 50, recording his daughters’ favorite bedtime story. Hebought a 14-inch legal tablet and worked in the evenings after supper.

Adams completed Watership Down in eighteen months. He just wanted a “modesthardback edition” to give his girls, but three agents and four publishers rejected the book.Most considered the story too realistic, not proper reading material for kids who want theirbunnies sweet and cuddly (ha!).

In 1972, a small press accepted Watership Down for a 2500-copy run, but theycouldn’t pay Adams an advance. Nor could they promote it. But, he says, they “got a reviewcopy onto every desk that mattered.” The reviews were stellar.

Penguin Books published the U.S. edition. They brilliantly marketed it as both achildren’s story and an adult allegory. Long before Harry Potter, Watership Down became a

crossover bestseller. The American edition sold over a million copies, and Adams became aliterary sensation at age 52. Watership Down is Penguin’s all-time bestseller.

The Second Oldest Profession

Adams considers himself a storyteller first and foremost, a proud member of the“not quite oldest profession.” Joseph Campbell, his inspiration, mentor and friend, showedhim the way. Through The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Adams

...learned that God meant me to be a storyteller. If it wasn’t forJoseph Campbell, I wouldn’t have written anything.

Adams wrote nineteen books after Watership Down. My favorite—Maia, which hewrote to celebrate the “sheer beauty, joy and dignity of physical love.” Maia is a lush epic,an imagined origin story of the goddess who fittingly gave her name to Adams’ birth monthof May.

A few years ago, Richard Adams celebrated his 90th at the local pub, not far from thereal Watership Down. The village presented him with the First Annual Whitchurch ArtsAward for Inspiration. A fitting tribute for someone who championed clear air, saw thecountryside through the eyes of its creatures and found his sacred calling later in life.

What Later Bloomers Can Learn From Richard:

“Please start now!”

Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Tarzan Century

“I have often been asked how I came to write. The best answer isthat I needed the money. When I started I was 35 and had failedin every enterprise I had ever attempted.”

~Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) wrote some of the most-beloved stories ofour time—John Carter of Mars, The Land That Time Forgot and, of course, Tarzan of the Apesand its sequels.

Yet the above quote is no exaggeration.

Until Burroughs published his first story, he seldom stuck to an endeavor more thana year, and often looked to his dad for bail outs.

His father, Major George Tyler Burroughs, made a fortune distilling whiskey inChicago. After the distillery burned down, he founded the American Battery Company andmade second fortune. Young Edgar attended the prestigious Harvard School, where hestudied Latin and Greek for three years.

The Teenage Cowboy

When a dangerous flu epidemic broke out, Edgar’s parents sent him to his brother’sranch in Idaho. He turned into a genuine cowboy. He helped with ranch chores, deliveredmail and supplies, and rode a wild horse named “Killer” bareback.

When the epidemic passed, young Edgar’s parents summoned him back to Chicago.He arrived wearing boots, Levis, a Stetson hat—and a .45 caliber Colt Single Action Armyrevolver.

Sounds like he acquired an attitude, too. It didn’t take long for Major Burroughs, aCivil War veteran, to dispatch Edgar to the Michigan Military Academy.

Edgar stayed for five years. He went AWOL twice and got a reputation as a trickster.Once he staged a mock duel and pretended to kill another student.

Eventually he channeled his energies into football and show riding. Upongraduation, the Academy offered him a teaching position. Among his duties: cavalry andgatling gun instructor, tactical officer, football manager and professor of geology.

A year later, Burroughs joined the army, but hated it. He said the Army dischargedhim due to a weak heart, but one biography maintains he begged his dad to pull strings andget him out.

Once Burroughs became a professional tale spinner, his own origin story changedregularly.

The Snake Oil Salesman

Major Burroughs gave his son a job at American Battery Company. That lasted ayear.

Burroughs took off to Idaho to help his brother with the roundup, bought astationery store in a nearby town and sold it at a loss.

He came home to dad. This time, the Major gave Burroughs even moreresponsibility— he appointed him treasurer of American Battery. Burroughs marriedEmma, his childhood sweetheart, and stayed with the company a full four years!

But settled life wasn’t enough. He took Emma to Idaho, where he and his brotherinvested in a gold mine. They fell out, the mine failed and Burroughs embarked on a stringof low-paying jobs: railroad cop, construction site timekeeper, stenographer and snake-oilsalesman.

Yes, snake oil salesman. Burroughs pushed a product called Alcoa, purported tocure hair loss and alcoholism. The 1906 Pure Food and Drug Law put an end to that.

At age 35, with two children to feed and a third on the way, he finally got a jobselling pencil sharpeners from a leased office. Instead of cold-calling, he read pulp fictionmagazines.

I remember thinking that if other people got paid for writingsuch stuff I might, too, for I was sure I could write stories just asrotten as theirs.

But Burroughs also appreciated the escape pulp fiction provided. In desperation, hepenned a 12-part unfinished story called “Under The Moons of Mars” and sent it to All-Story Magazine. They accepted it for serial publication and sent him a $400 check (about$8800 in 2009, according to Wikipedia).

The check was the first big event in my life. No amount of moneytoday could possibly give me the thrill that first $400 check gaveme.

By the time his “Mars” story finished its run, Burroughs had completed Tarzan of theApes. Upon publication, Tarzan caused an immediate sensation. Burroughs never lookedback.

And surprisingly (or not), he became a shrewd businessman.

The Media Mogul

Burroughs expanded Tarzan’s popularity into every media outlet of the era: books,movies, radio, merchandising, comic strips. Business experts predicted he’d fail throughover-saturation.

But fans clamored for Burroughs’ stories. Tarzan became one of the most successfulcharacters in media history.

In 1923, Burroughs took control of his books and started his own publishingcompany, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

In a way, Burroughs’ strategy presaged the current era of alternative media and self-publishing.

The Enduring Legacy

During a vacation with Emma and the kids, Burroughs visited California and fell inlove with it. Around 1915, he bought a 540-acre ranch north of Los Angeles and named it“Tarzana.” More people moved into the area, and it became the city of Tarzana, California.In 1950, Burroughs died of a heart attack in nearby Encino, having lost the ranch during theDepression.

Burroughs starting writing Tarzan of the Apes almost exactly one hundred years ago,in July 1911.

I grew up with the Tarzan movies and comic strips, but had never read the original.So I downloaded it last week. (Many of Burroughs’ works are in the public domain becausethey were published before 1923. You can read them online at Project Gutenberg. They’realso available in Kindle format.)

Tarzan overflows with theatrical prose and political incorrectness. Pulp fiction, yes.But Burroughs also takes on the nature versus nurture debate and comments on thesavageness of civilized life. And boy, could he tell a story!

On one level, Burroughs sounds lazy and egotistical. Yet on another, he comes acrossas an imaginative soul who couldn’t be fettered. Once he found his path, he becameobsessed to the point of workaholism:

That I had to work is evidenced by a graph that I keep on mydesk showing my word output from year to year since 1911. In1913, it reached its peak, with 413,000 words for the year.

Edgar Rice Burroughs spent his early years rebelling against his father and much ofhis adulthood wandering from job to job. Yet once he gave reign to his imagination andfollowed his weird, he created stories that have endured for over a century, and no doubtwill see many more.

What Later Bloomers Can Learn From Edgar:

You don’t need to be the best to be successful,

but a little obsession goes a long way

Penelope Fitzgerald: Saved By A Sinking Houseboat

“A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit,embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, andas such it must surely be a necessary commodity.”

~Penelope Fitzgerald

The Guardian UK has called Penelope Fitzgerald “one of the greatest Englishnovelists of recent years” and “one of the finest British novelists of the last century.”

She published her first novel, The Golden Child, at age 61. A year later, The BookerPrize committee shortlisted her second one, The Bookshop. At age 63, her third novel,Offshore, won The Booker, Britain’s most prestigious writing award.

You’ve not heard of her?

Neither had I, until I stumbled upon an article in The Times UK, ten years after herdeath.

Penelope Knox Fitzgerald (1916-2000) was born into a bookish family in Lincoln,England. Her father, E.V. Knox, edited Punch magazine. (Punch is a British satire weeklystarted in 1841. It coined the term “cartoon” in the modern sense.)

Her uncle wrote detective fiction. Her aunt was also a prolific and popular novelist.Penelope’s mother studied English at Somerville College, Oxford, not long after it openedfor women.

Penelope went to Somerville herself in 1935 and did brilliantly. She co-edited thestudent newspaper and graduated with a first. After graduation, she worked for the BBCand wrote film reviews for Punch.

Her biographer, Hermione Lee, says Penelope had “all the makings of someone whowas going to start publishing books in her 30s.”

But she didn’t.

At 25, she married Desmond Fitzgerald, a former officer with the Irish Guards. Shehad three children and settled into domestic life. But as Hermione Lee points out, it wouldbe too simplistic to conclude “marriage stopped her writing.”

Instead, she incubated every facet of her life and transmuted it into fiction decadeslater.

Life Into Fiction

In the 1950s, Penelope and Desmond ran The World View, a literary and culturalmagazine, which gave her plenty of writing practice.

In the 1960s, the magazine folded and times got tough. She clerked in a hauntedbookstore and wrote about it in The Bookshop (1978), her Booker shortlist novel.

Penelope and her family lived on Thames River houseboat, which sunk with all theirpossessions on board. They went to a homeless shelter until the government found lodging

for them. She turned that experience into Offshore (1979) and won the prestigious BookerPrize.

Throughout her 40s and 50s, Penelope taught English literature, first at an exclusivegirls’ school, then at Westminster Tutors, where she prepared young women for theircollege entrance exams. She wrote her first books “during my free periods as a teacher in asmall, noisy staff room, full of undercurrents of exhaustion, worry and reproach.”

Penelope produced two biographies, then Desmond contracted cancer. When hebecome bedridden, she entertained him with tales of 1977’s King Tut craze. They becamethe basis for her first novel, The Golden Child (no relation to the Eddie Murphy movie),published when she was 61.

I’ve read The Golden Child and found it witty and cutting. It’s the literary equivalentof Steve Martin’s brilliant King Tut sketch.

Penelope published her last novel, The Blue Flower, at 79 and became the first non-American to win the National Book Critics Circle award for it. It’s considered hermasterpiece.

She died in April 2000 at age 83. Her short story collection, The Means of Escape,was published posthumously, as were two volumes of collected essays.

Penelope Fitzgerald maintained a sense of humor no matter what life dished out.And in her last two decades, she turned her joys and tragedies into stories that capturedBritish readers and prize committees alike.

What Later Bloomers Can Learn From Penelope:

Incubate your life experience, then view it with new eyes!

Ian Fleming: The Storied Spymaster

“Never say ‘no’ to adventures. Always say ‘yes,’ otherwise you’lllead a very dull life.”

~Colonel Pott (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)

The man who created James Bond was a late bloomer who died young.

Ian Fleming (1908-1964) finished his first book, Casino Royale, at 44 andsuccumbed to a heart attack twelve years—and twelve books—later. But what a legacy!

Fleming himself was a fascinating man. Did you know that...?

1. Winston Churchill Wrote His Father’s Obituary

During World War I, Fleming’s dad Valentine joined the Queen’s Own OxfordshireHussars. A week before Ian turned nine, Valentine was killed when the Germans bombedhis outpost in France. Winston Churchill, Valentine’s friend and fellow officer, wrote hisobituary.

Fleming came from a privileged background, but lived in the shadows of his heroicfather and scholarly brother, Peter, who went to Oxford.

Fleming’s academic and professional record was abysmal. Prestigious Eton boys’school expelled him for an incident involving a girl. He went to Sandhurst MilitaryAcademy, but failed the officer’s training test. He then failed Foreign Office exam.

He finally found a job with Reuters news agency. He learned the basics ofjournalism, but abhorred the low pay.

2. Fleming Worked As A Stock Broker

Like Jules Verne, Fleming finally became a stockbroker to make ends meet.

He made enough money to live like a playboy. He threw parties that featuredbeautiful women and high-stakes card games. He collected first editions and surrealist art.He might have become a complete wastrel if it weren’t for the war.

3. Fleming Became A Spymaster

In 1939, while still a stockbroker, Fleming freelanced as a reporter for The Times ona Soviet trade mission. He might also have been spying for the Foreign Office, where he hadfriends and informants from his journalism days.

From there, Fleming became personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence(DNI), Admiral John Godfrey. Fleming’s imagination, intelligence and charisma won himseveral important assignments during World War II.

In 1941 and 1942, Fleming visited Washington DC to help coordinateBritish/American intelligence operations. In fact, he wrote a memorandum detailing how toestablish what would become the CIA. He also spearheaded Operation Golden Eye, a plan todefend Gibraltar should the Germans attempt to invade through Spain.

Like every intelligence officer, however, Fleming had signed the Official Secrets Act.But no doubt some of his experiences found their way into the Bond books.

Fleming excelled at his job. His boss, Admiral Godfrey, said: “Ian should have beenDNI and I his naval adviser.”

4. Fleming Kept His Day Job After Hitting The Bestseller Lists

After World War II, Fleming worked for The Sunday Times as foreign manager.Then, at age 43, he began writing Casino Royale.

The official Ian Fleming site shared his rewrites of Casino Royale’s opening line:

First attempt: “Scent and smoke and sweat hit the taste buds with an acid thwack atthree o’clock in the morning.”

Second try: “Scent and smoke and sweat can suddenly combine together and hit thetaste buds with an acid shock at three o’clock in the morning.”

Finally (and satisfied): “The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseatingat three in the morning.”

There you have it! Good writing is, indeed, rewriting.

Fleming sent the book to a poet friend, who gave it to Jonathan Cape Publishers.They released it in 1953, and as the official site says, “a British cultural hero was born.”

Live and Let Die followed in 1954 and Moonraker in 1955. Fleming wrote one Bondadventure each year thereafter until his death in 1964.

He also continued to write for The Sunday Times, and persuaded his employers togrant him two months annual leave. In January and February of every year from 1952, heretreated to his second home in Jamaica (called Goldeneye) and penned the newest Bondinstallment.

5. Fleming Wrote A Famous Children’s Book

In 1962, the first Bond film Dr No debuted, starring an unknown Scottish actornamed Sean Connery.

Fleming had his first heart attack the same year. While recovering, he wrote a storyabout a family and their magical car for his young son, Caspar. It was entitled Chitty ChittyBang Bang, and made into a movie with Dick Van Dyke.

Two years later, at age 56, Fleming suffered a second heart attack and passed away.

I have always smoked and drunk and loved too much. In fact Ihave lived not too long but too much. One day the Iron Crab willget me. Then I shall have died of living too much.

Fleming’s Legacy

After Fleming’s death, his literary executors hired other authors to continue theJames Bond novels, including Kingsley Amis, John Gardner and Raymond Benson.

The latest Bond book, Carte Blanche by American Jeffery Deaver, recently launchedunder the stupendous architecture of London’s St Pancras Station.

(I’ve been there. It’s like a gothic metal cathedral.)

A model on a motorbike and the Royal Marine Commando display team dropped infor champagne (Bollinger, no doubt). It’s the first reboot of the print novels—Bond is aveteran of Afghanistan.

In a 1962 article, Fleming wrote:

My contribution to the art of thriller-writing has been to attemptthe total stimulation of the reader all the way through, even tohis taste buds…

And I’d say he succeeded, on his own unique terms.

What Later Bloomers Can Learn From Ian:

44 years old. 12 years left. 12 books written.

Take one step. Keep going.

PD James: From Civil Servant to Literary Royalty

“Nothing that ever happens to a novelist is ever wasted.”~PD James

I have a love-hate affair with crime novels. As a girl, I practically ate Nancy Drewstories for lunch. By the age of 13, I’d read my way through the adult mystery shelves at mylocal library.

But as I grew older, they lost their fascination. Good mysteries are truly hard to find.There’s nothing worse than a dull whodunit.

Then, on a whim, I picked up PD James’ Original Sin on a remainder table. Fivehundred pages later, I closed it and thought, “Didn’t see that coming.” I was hooked.

Original Sin was the ninth in her series about poet-policeman Adam Dalgliesh,commenced in 1962. She wrote it at age 42, while still in civil service and supporting an illhusband. I developed a deep admiration for her.

In 2001, just before Original Sin was published, she said, “I have lived with him[Dalgliesh] for 40 years. And I have now decided he and I will die at the same time. I shan’tkill him off.”

Too many books and too little time later, I lost track of PD James. I wondered if sheand Detective Dalgliesh were still around. (Just where does time go? How do we forget thesmall things that delight us, like a suspenseful book?)

I happily discovered that she’s almost 90 and still going strong, and recently gave aninterview to the Telegraph UK at a book festival in Devon.

“A writer needs as much trauma as she can take”

Phyllis Dorothy James was born in 1920 in Oxford and educated at CambridgeHigh School for Girls. She was just 15 when her mother was committed to a mentalhospital. James has little memory of the time before this happened. She does, however,remember always wanting to be a writer, particularly a mystery writer. When she firstheard of Humpty Dumpty, she asked: “Did he fall or was he pushed?”

James left school at 17 to work in the tax office. When she was 21, she marriedConnor Bantry White, a young medical student. They had two daughters.

When A Beloved Companion Becomes A Total Stranger

World War II broke out, and Connor went to India and Africa with the Royal ArmyMedical Corps. He returned a broken man, suffering from schizophrenia. He never workedagain and spent the next 20 years in and out of mental institutions.

James says, “Only those who have lived with the mental illness of someone they lovecan understand. Another human being who was once a beloved companion can become notonly a stranger, but occasionally a malevolent stranger.”

James took government jobs to support her family, first with the National HealthServices and then with the Home Office.

Connor died in 1964, when they both were both 44. James never remarried.

Eighteen Years To Overnight Success

At one point, she “realised that there was never going to be a convenient moment towrite the first book. You become a writer by writing. I had to make it happen.”

James wrote in the early mornings before setting off for her job as a hospitaladministrator. Although the first Dalgliesh mystery was published in 1962, fame andfortune didn’t come until she retired from the Home Office 18 years later, with InnocentBlood, her eighth novel.

She has no regrets about keeping that steady paycheck coming in: “I had done morereading, I had done more thinking, I had done more living. It has been extremely usefulbeing in the mainstream of working life.” She administered five psychiatric clinics for theNHS and worked in criminal law for the Home Office.

Until age 87, she had few health problems. Then she broke her hip, and whilerecovering, had a heart attack in her dentist’s chair. “I was extraordinarily lucky withhealth. I really didn’t feel particularly old... We don’t grow gradually into old age.Throughout our lives, we’re on a plateau and then suddenly, whoosh! We’re five yearsolder, and then we’re on a plateau again.”

James incorporated her recovery experience into the latest Dalgliesh mystery, ThePrivate Patient, which takes place in a remote plastic surgery clinic.

Other settings from her novels include a secluded Cornish island, a decrepitmedieval tower turned asylum, and a private museum with a wing dedicated to grislykillings between World Wars I and II. (Only in England!)

Crime Fiction’s Grand Dame Becomes Official

PD James has five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. She looks likeeveryone’s granny, except for that “arsenic and old lace” gleam in her eyes.

In 1983, she was made an OBE (officer of the Order of the British Empire) and in1991, a life peer (Baroness James of Holland Park).

Baroness James regards the 21st century a challenge when it comes to findingmotives for her antagonists. “Dear old Agatha Christie had A murder B because A washaving an affair and thought B would tell. Now, of course, people write about their affairs inthe Sunday papers.” (Or their blogs.)

What Later Bloomers Can Learn from PD James:

Nothing that happens to a novelist (or anyone else) is ever wasted

James Michener: How His Novel Derailed My Career

As an archaeology graduate student, I decided to reread one of my favorite novels,The Source, to judge its accuracy.

The story takes place in Israel, on a mound (also known as a tel) formed bymillennia of habitation. As each artifact comes to light, the story flashes back to its origin.The Source depicts awful excavation standards, even for the 1960s. But the artifacts revealsome incredible human stories.

Of course, you might think. That’s what archaeology does.

Not really.

In the early ‘90s, archaeology still aspired to be a hard science. The “publish orperish” academic journals preferred articles steeped in the jargon of scientific method. Formy MA thesis, I statistically analyzed thousands of flint waste flakes to discover signs of“sickle craft specialization as an indication of increasing social complexity.” Not like you seeon TV.

I eventually chose storytelling over science, and skipped the Ph.d. program. I blameJames Michener (1907-1997), author of The Source.

A Childhood Out of Dickens

The man who derailed my archaeology career didn’t know where or when he wasborn, but his best guess was around 1907. He was raised as a Quaker in Doylestown,Pennsylvania by an adoptive mother. They lived in extreme poverty and relocated often.

At Christmas, we rarely had anything. As a boy, I never had apair of skates, never had a bicycle, never had a little wagon,never had a baseball glove, never had a pair of sneakers. I didn’thave anything. And do you know, at about seven or eight, I justdecided, “Well, that’s the way it is. And I’m not going to beat mybrains out about it.”

His mother loved literature, however, and often read to Michener from Dickens,Thackeray and Balzac.

Before Michener entered Swathmore College on a full scholarship, he peddledchestnuts, traveled America on a boxcar and did carnival private detective work. Duringcollege he was employed as a night watchman.

He graduated Swathmore with honors, and taught English and History for severalyears. In 1941, he became a textbook editor at Macmillan Publishing.

A Quaker Goes To War

Later that same year, Japanese military forces attacked Pearl Harbor. Michenerwaived his Quaker principles and volunteered for service. “I had taught about Hitler, and Ihad taught about the Japanese war machine, and I knew that this was a battle to the death,so I enlisted.”

The U.S. Navy assigned him to the Solomon Islands as a war historian. Each night, inhis Quonset hut, he recorded his impressions of life around him:

Sitting there in the darkness, illuminated only by the flickeringlamplight, I visualized the aviation scenes in which I hadparticipated, the landing beaches I’d seen, the remote outposts,the exquisite islands with bending palms, and especially thevaliant people I’d known: the French planters, the Australiancoast watchers, the Navy nurses, the Tonkinese laborers, theordinary sailors and soldiers who were doing the work, and theprimitive natives to whose jungle fastnesses I had traveled.

He Made His Own Rules

Michener anonymously mailed his manuscript to Macmillan in 1947, since they hada strict policy against accepting employee submissions. He planned to return to his job afterthe war, but decided he was not technically their employee at the time.

Macmillan found him out, but decided to publish Tales of the South Pacific anyway.Michener was 40. The following year, in 1948, it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The book

was not a huge financial success, however, until it became the basis for Rodgers andHammerstein’s musical, South Pacific.

In 1949, Michener quit Macmillan to write full time.

He penned 40 books over 50 years. Many were epics with evocative settings thatspanned several generations. Some required so many years of research that Michenerwould spend months on location or even move there to finish them—Hawaii (1959), Iberia(1968), Poland (1983), Texas (1985), Alaska (1988), Mexico (1992).

Until the Very End

Even at age 90, he maintained a disciplined writing schedule. He awoke at 7:00 a.m.,ate a light breakfast and wrote until 1:00 pm.

On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Michener underwent kidney dialysistreatment, so he needed to stay near his clinic in Austin, Texas. “I sit in the TV room and seeshows on the big ships I used to travel or areas that I used to wander, and a tear comes tomy eye.”

In October 1997, he chose to discontinue dialysis and died shortly thereafter ofrenal failure.

A close friend said,

He felt he had accomplished what he wanted to accomplish interms of his life’s work. He did not want to suffer a long series ofcomplications.

What Later Bloomers Can Learn From James:

If you start over at 40, you could have another five decades years—over

half your life—of productivity

Sharon Kay Penman: Taking On Shakespeare

I’ve made a fascinating discovery about Later Bloomers.

Many are driven, not just by passion, but by an obscure obsession that defines theirpath.

With Peter Paul Roget, it was creating elaborate lists. With Mary Somerville, it wasthe exotic shape of algebraic symbols.

And with Sharon Kay Penman (b. 1945), it was vindicating England’s most reviledmonarch— Richard III.

A Thing Devised By The Enemy

With a name like hers, you’d wonder why Penman considered doing anything otherthan writing. She’d always loved it, but couldn’t decide on a college major. After a few falsestarts at different schools, she transferred to the University of Texas at Austin andgraduated at age 24 with a major in history.

In her academic wanderings, she became fascinated with King Richard III, the Houseof York’s last king, portrayed by Shakespeare as a nasty hunchback who murdered hisyoung nephews and drowned his brother in a butt of malmsey (Madeira).

Penman was astonished to learn that Shakespeare took extreme poetic license withRichard III (sorta like Hollywood):

I stumbled onto a revisionist history of Richard III while incollege. This particular book held him responsible for the deathsof his nephews—the Little Princes in the Tower—but acquittedhim of other crimes he has been saddled with by Shakespeareand the Tudor historians. Until then, I’d accepted thetraditionalist view of Richard as evil incarnate, and this newimage of him as a decent man, who’d nevertheless committed areprehensible crime, aroused my curiosity.

She continued her research and concluded that, not only was Richard innocent of hisnephews’ murders, his was a classic case of history being written by the victor.

Richard III had been a skillful commander and a decent ruler, improving workingconditions in his native north England. He lost his life at the Battle of Bosworth Fieldfighting rival claimant Henry Tudor.

Henry Tudor became Henry VII, father of the fat fellow with too many wives. Henrydated the start of his reign to the day before the battle, so he could declare everyone whofought for Richard a traitor and confiscate their lands. Henry VII needed to portray Richardas a tyrant.

Naked Villainy

While still an undergraduate, Penman wrote a novel about Richard’s life, The Sunnein Splendour, to set the record straight. She put the completed 500-page typewrittenmanuscript on the back seat of her car, ready to mail, and ran some errands.

When she returned to the parking lot, she discovered that someone had stolen themanuscript from her car. “I found that the loss was so traumatic that I couldn’t writeagain...it was as if the well had gone totally dry.”

The shock propelled her into the arms of the law—she earned her J.D. degree fromRutgers University in 1974 and became a tax attorney.

But she couldn’t shake her passion for the Middle Ages and loathed her new career.Over the next several years, she recreated her lost manuscript while slugging it out in a lawoffice.

Then a small insurance settlement allowed her to move to York (Richard III’s home)and work on the novel full-time. She quit practicing law and never looked back:

Yes, I have left the profession of law, thank Heaven. I looked uponthat as penance for my sins: past, present, and future. I alwayswanted to write; I just never expected that I could earn anymoney at it. So there was no choice to be made. When theopportunity arose, I pounced upon it.

True Hope Is Swift

The Sunne in Splendour was finally published in 1982 when Penman was 37.

Since its publication, Penman has become one of the most beloved historical fictionwriters of her generation, but life hasn’t always been easy for her. She suffered fromrecurring mononucleosis for seven years (which doctors finally recognized as chronicfatigue syndrome).

Penman shook that, only to contract an exotic ailment called Ehrlichiosis—a tick-borne infection rarer than Lyme Disease that can be dangerous if untreated. Luckily, shegot antibiotics immediately, but it knocked her out for months.

Throughout her illnesses, Penman still managed to produce a book every two orthree years, twelve so far. She doesn’t keep set working hours, but tends to write in flow.She says, “not a day passes when I’m not either writing or researching or thinking aboutplot developments.”

Penman latest book, Lionheart (about another King Richard), just came out.

And Flies With Swallow’s Wings

Many readers describe The Sunne in Splendour as the most vivid book they have everread. I’m among them. I read the novel when it was first published and thought, “This iswhat I want to do. Tell stories that transport people into another time and place.”

Through the theft of her manuscript and the dashing of her dreams, her reboundcareer as an attorney and several chronic illnesses, Sharon Kay Penman kept alive herpassionate obsession with vindicating a tragic king, and bloomed into a writer who makeshistory come alive for countless fans.

What Later Bloomers Can Learn From Sharon:

Follow the creative obsession that won’t let you go

Epilogue:

The Secret To Late Blooming

“Don’t become a well-rounded person. Well rounded people aresmooth and dull. Become a thoroughly spiky person. Grow spikesfrom every angle. Stick in their throats like a pufferfish.”

~Bruce Sterling

That’s from Sterling’s address at the March 1991 Computer Game DevelopersConference. Sterling’s no late bloomer. He published his first science fiction novel at age 20and co-founded the cyberpunk movement (think Blade Runner).

But he distills what I noted in the chapter “Sharon Penman: Taking OnShakespeare”—many late bloomers are driven, not just by passion, but by an obscureobsession.

Penman defended a medieval monarch against Shakespearean libel. Peter PaulRoget created thousands of elaborate lists to write his Thesaurus. Mary Somerville adoredthe exotic shape of algebraic symbols and became a popular science writer. Then there’sBram Stoker, PD James and David Seidler—purveyors of vampires, murderers and astuttering king, respectively.

As Sterling puts it:

Follow your weird, ladies and gentlemen. Forget trying to passfor normal...woo the muse of the odd.

What weird calls to you?

Later Bloomers: 35 Folks Over Age 35 Who Found Their Passion And PurposeCopyright 2011 by Debra Eve

All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this work may be reproduced orretransmitted in any form without permission except in the case of brief quotations

embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, email Debra Eve(elle.b@laterbloomer.com).