
Erma Bombeck: Her Hilarious Late-Blooming Wisdom Never Gets Old
Erma Bombeck’s humor column didn’t launch until she was almost 40. It ran for more than 30 years, appeared in 900 papers, and made her a household name.
J.K. Rowling observed, “There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place.” Perhaps that’s why writers constitute Later Bloomer’s largest category. Our books and stories can become healing gifts to ourselves and to the future.

Erma Bombeck’s humor column didn’t launch until she was almost 40. It ran for more than 30 years, appeared in 900 papers, and made her a household name.

Links to fourteen classic books by late-blooming writers, including Jules Verne, Bram Stoker, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Joseph Conrad, Edith Wharton and more!

Madeleine L’Engle was over 40 when she wrote her beloved children’s book. A Wrinkle in Time. Twenty-six publishers rejected it, so she put it in a drawer. Why did they find it so difficult?

Saloma Furlong’s parents wouldn’t let her attend high school and no one prosecuted them. How is that possible in a country with compulsory education laws?

When all seemed lost, author Anne R. Allen landed a publishing contract that included digs in an old mill near Sherwood Forest! But it turned out less than legendary…

Lew Wallace was the 19th century’s real-life Forrest Gump: Savior of a president, advisor to a sultan, scourge of an outlaw named Billy the Kid. And at age 53, he wrote Ben-Hur.