"Vintage" Writers
Celebrating Women Writers Over 70: A Story of Reinvention, Creativity, and Community
After a fifty-plus-year career as a counterculture, rock, and movie set photographer, I reinvented myself as a novelist and released Lenswoman in Love—a novel of the 1960s and ’70s—in 2025 at age 78, reimagining my early career as a romance. To my surprise, I discovered that I am not the only woman in retirement who has become a writer. I initiated a weekly Zoom chat for “Vintage” authors, all women over 70, and discovered fascinating, feisty ladies who have drawn on their wealth of experience to create wonderful books.
Among them are:
- Roselyn Teukolsky, who, after a lifetime of teaching computer science to devious teenagers (and writing the Barron’s prep book on computer science), has written two edge-of-your-seat thrillers I could not put down, featuring a computer genius heroine: A Reluctant Spy and The Fourth Woman.
- Dorothea Buckingham, a librarian in Hawaii and WWII historian, who released her first novel Code Name Rascal, about four women in Hawaii who worked for the government to help win the war.
- Karen Lee Cohen, who, after a career as a TV producer, has written the non-fiction self-help book Let’s Be Peace and started a movement to make the world a better place, one person at a time.
- Carol J. Amato, who, after creating innumerable textbooks and guides to help writers, has two middle-grade children’s books in The Phantom Hunter Series: The Lost Treasure of the Golden Sun and The Secret of Blackhurst Manor.
As well as:
- Colleen Fleidner’s Fascinating True Tales from Old California
- Alexis Krasilovsky’s poetry book Watermelon Linguistics and children’s book Tuki the Tiger
- DM Cross’s romatasy A Long Way from Home
- MJ Krause-Chivers’ Russian Mennonite Chronicles: Katerina’s Dark Shadow and Katerina’s Dark Journey
- Paulette Brooks’ American immigrant saga Not Just a Homemaker
…and many more working on their first books.
Our group is a terrific support system for each other—sharing expertise in writing, editing, publishing, and marketing, cheering each other on, commiserating through setbacks, and celebrating each other’s writing and personal journeys. It has provided a sense of community and created new friendships.
The group is overflowing with talent from women living all over the USA and Canada, writing in every imaginable genre—historical fiction, romance, mystery/suspense, children’s and middle-grade adventures, self-help, spirituality, and more—proving it’s never too late to reinvent yourself!
