Most publishing houses are really tight about that one, Liz. It does make sense; when you're reading through a slush pile, looking for a gem to rec, you want the content to stand out. All the deliberate attempt at quirky does is make the editor grind his or her teeth.

Waaaay back in the mid-seventies, I worked for a small childrens' educational publishing house here in SF called Troubador Press. The big thing was the illustrations, but we had the form letter that went out to everyone we were considering: "blah blah fishcakes all text doublespaced".

We were less picky about typefaces as I remember, because it was the age of the IBM Selectric and there were no home computers.

I just thought I'd share this here. Just got done talking to Case Management Gal, who asked me about writing. Me:Yes, I've had articles published but no fiction as yet. Don't know why...tough beast. She: What stops you? Me(thinking) If I knew that would we have this conversation? No. You'd be referred to my publicist.

erika, remind yourself that J.D. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book while on welfare.

Slap me down if I'm being sappy; I just cling to examples of people like me who succeeded. (e.g. Harriet Doerr, whose first novel, Stones for Ibarra, was published when she was 80.)

Yes, she is "as a god" to me at the moment.

Betsy, no slap, but more stories like that would be encouraging. I'd heard that about Rowling but forgotten.

Jeanne Ray was 60 when she wrote Romeo and Julie, a delightful novel about two middle-aged florists long separated by family hatred. Part of the reason she wrote it was that she was tired of not seeing people her own age in books.

Sorry to barge in, but Betsy is playing my favourite game; I love collecting these kinds of writers' stories too.

Mary Wesley published her first book at 70. "I have no patience with people who grow old at 60 just because they are entitled to a bus pass," she said once. "Sixty should be the time to start something new, not put your feet up."

Mary Lawson's book Crow Lake just won the Canadian First Novel Award. It was published when she was 55.

A writer writes, period.

Publishing age is not a bar to a great book; why should it be? The longer you live, the more stories you have to tell.

Yeah, I know; it's just that at this point in my life I find the stories of authors who plugged away at it, usually part-time, for decades both comforting and inspiring.

Especially on days like today, when my work consists of massaging and collating multiple press releases into somewhat-readable form, and I can feel any stray bits of creativity I have left leaking out my ears (along with the grey matter).

Oh, I think the later in life writers are kickass. I also tend to think that the books I'll write at 60 (assuming I make it that far) are going to be far more amazing than anything I've had to say to date.

But I'm not the ideal person for this discussion, I think. I wrote my first three and a half books while running computer operations for a two-city banking regulatory law firm. I dealty by hiring a secretary whose mother is a famous poet, so who knew what I was about, and I got a lot done.

Without that, I'd have got a lot less written, I guess.