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Tuesday, June 09, 2009

aging: gray-listing

Not all of us started our writing careers in our 20s, 30s or even 40s. More and more people are beginning to write after they've tucked their first careers to bed. I know writing isn't my first career - though I hope it is my last.

Is being old a liability to getting published? I know I've wondered about that. As I've read the job description of agents, which includes managing a writer's career I've asked, how long does that perspective career have to be so that it's worth their time taking you on?

Ron Benrey (who, with wife Janet, teaches the Fiction after 50 seminar) writes about aging and publication in a guest post on Novel Journey:

"Whether you call it ageism, age discrimination, or “gray listing,” the idea is simple – a novel is rejected by an agent or editor because of the author’s age, not because of the manuscript’s lack of publishability...


Read all of "Have You Been Gray Listed?"

(Ron and Janet Benry's Fiction after 50 seminar.)

Have you experienced this kind of age discrimination? If so, I'd love to hear about it.
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4 comments:

  1. Laura J. Davis8:54 AM

    Thanks for posting that Violet. Good grief, God just called me into writing about 8 years ago. I better hurry up and submit all my manuscripts before I get any older!

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  2. Violet N.9:18 AM

    I'm with you, Laura - hurry! hurry!! Seriously, though, if God has called us to write, He can engineer our careers past the conventional wisdom. Frankly I'm not terribly worried.

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  3. Violet N.9:19 AM

    Plus - one always has L'Oreal!

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  4. Lynda Schultz11:03 AM

    I was naive enough to believe that writing would be one area at least where age would be an advantage. Shot down again!

    Oh well, my doctor says my skin looks a lot younger than my 59 years. I think I'll put the lowlights back in my hair. Do you suppose that will fool anyone?

    Thanks for this, Vi.

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