LAURA AMY SCHLITZ WINS TWO NEWBERYS IN HER 50s: "AGENT-HUNTING PROCESS WAS GRIM INDEED"

     Looking for writing inspiration? Check out our weekly profiles of creative late bloomers who first found success in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s. This week's shot of inspiration comes from a school librarian who this year at 58 won her second Newbery, the most prestigious award in children's literature. She was 52 when she won her first.

CREATIVE LATE BLOOMER: School librarian and two-time Newbery winner Laura Amy Schlitz

AGE: 58

LATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT: 2013 Newbery award

Laura Amy Schlitz in 2008 when she won her first Newbery at age 52 for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Photo by Rob Carr of the Associated Press

HER STORY: Working as a librarian at Park School in Baltimore, Laura Amy Schlitz wrote a series of monologues for the school's 5th grade about life in a medieval English village as told by the local children. In 2008 she published nearly two dozen of these one-person plays in a book called Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! The book won the prestigious Newbery for most distinguished contribution to children's literature. Schlitz was 52. Earlier this year she won another Newbery: The American Library Association chose Spendor and Glooms as one of three Newbery Honor Books. Schlitz calls the gothic thriller her "magnum opus." It took her more than six year to write it.

ON HEARING THE NEWS OF HER SECOND NEWBERY: "Some part of me wanted dreadfully for this book to win something because I worked so hard on it," Schlitz told the Baltimore Sun. "I loved it so much and hated it so much. I hoped, and tried not to hope. Yesterday, I cleaned my whole house. I was up at midnight on my hands and knees scrubbing the top of my trash can. But I thought, 'If I'm going to be disappointed, it's nicer to be disappointed in a clean place.'"

NO ONE EVER SAID IT WAS EASY: "I tried for years to get an agent, because I was told you needed an agent," Schlitz told the Wall Street Journal. "The agent-hunting process was grim indeed. I didn't stop writing, but I did give up on the idea of being published."

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER GIVE UP: In 2001 Schlitz sent unsolicited copies of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! to 11 publishers. The book was turned down by 10. At the 11th publisher -- Candlewick Press -- an editor's assistant discovered the manuscript in the slush pile and showed it to her boss who instantly fell in love with it. It took seven years to publish, however, as problems arose with illustrating the book. Meanwhile, Schlitz kept writing. In 2006 she published a biography for middle-grade children, The Hero Schliemann, a biography of the explorer who discovered ancient Troy. Shortly after, she published a picture book, a little-known story by the Brothers Grimm about a soldier who makes a bet with the Devil. Schlitz collaborated on The Bearskinner with illustrator Max Grafe.
     

IRIS APFEL: LATE-BLOOMING RARE BIRD

      Here's your latest weekly dose of inspiration from Creative Late Bloomers who first found success in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s and who are still going strong. Recent posts featured 96-year-old memoirist Diana Athill and Carmen Herrera, painting at 98. This week's creative late bloomer is 92-year-old fashion designer Iris Apfel.

FASHION DESIGNER IRIS APFEL, 92

HER LATE-BLOOMING STORY: Born in Queens on August 29, 1921, Apfel studied art history at New York University and art at the University of Wisconsin. She worked for Women's Wear Daily, interior designer Elinor Johnson and illustrator Robert Goodman before marrying Carl Apfel in 1948. From 1950-1992, she and her husband (who is now 99) ran Old World Weavers textile firm, participating in restoration projects for nine U.S. presidents, from Truman to Clinton. Developing her signature fashion style early on -- enormous black-rimmed glasses and exotic clothing described as "Fellini-esque" -- Apfel in 2005 (at age 74) came to the world's attention when the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute put her extravagant personal wardrobe on display. She now offers a fashion program at the University of Texas, Austin, has a makeup collection with MAC, is working on glasses for Eye-Bobs, has designed jewelry and other accessories under the label Rara Avis for Home Shopping Network and is on YOOX. "I'm a geriatric starlet, my dear, don't you know. All of a sudden, I'm hot; I'm cool; I have a 'fan base' ... I never thought that in my dotage that I'd have to find an entertainment lawyer," Apfel told the New York Times Up Close column.

Thames & Hudson (2007)

LATEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS: 

* On September 23 Apfel will offer her accessories -- bangles, scarves and beads -- on Home Shopping Network.

* She's the subject of a film portrait being prepared by Albert Maysles, author of the popular film "The Beales of Grey Gardens." (See trailer: http://vimeo.com/45590129

*This year Apfel was named one of 50 best-dressed over 50 by the Guardian. 

*A gallery of Apfel's clothes, accessories and furnishings is in the planning stages for the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History in Boynton Beach, Florida.

ON GROWING OLD: "Getting older ain't for sissies, I'll tell you...I have a dear friend whose mother's gone, but she was very funny. When I'd say 'Yuda, how do you feel?' she'd say 'Oh -- when I get up in the morning, everything I have two of, one hurts.' You have to push yourself when you're older, because it's very easy to fall into the trap. You start to fall apart--you just have to do your best to paste yourself together. I think doing things and being active is very important. When your mind is busy, you don't hurt so much. Thank God I love to do things. I feel blessed that I have all these opportunities at this stage in my life. I was always very busy with all kinds of stuff, and I'm very used to it -- but at ninety, I have all these new careers." (intothegloss.com/2012/01/iris-apfel/)

NO ONE EVER SAID IT WOULD BE EASY: "I'm from New York. My grandparents were settlers of Long Island City. When they came here, there was no bridge and they had to hire a boat across the river. They had a farm and my grandmother had to go once a week to Manhattan to buy provisions -- very primitive. I grew up out there, and since I married we've lived in the city. So I'm definitely a New Yorker through and through. My mother was pretty glamorous, she was a working gal, but she was very glamorous. (Into the Gloss, 2012)

"Look at how many women in this country are depressed about how they look and how they think they have to look! It's really sad. And it's not about money. People with a lot of money don't dress as well as people who have to make do, who have to be inventive. Those are the people who are always more interestingly dressed, I think. Everything I do, I do with gut instinct. If I think too much, it won't come out right." (Architectural Digest, 2011)

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER GIVE UP: "If you put something together and it doesn't look so good, the fashion police are not going to come take you away. And if they do, you might have some fun in jail," Apfel told 17-year-old blogger Tavi Gevinson, founder of the website Rookie. "I've been doing this for over 70 years, and I haven't changed," Apfel said when Gevinson asked her what it was like being a late bloomer. "I haven't changed my style, I haven't changed my thinking, I haven't changed my look, and now everybody's dancing up and down and jumping around. To say I don't enjoy it would be lying; it's very nice to have some adulation, deserved or not. But sometimes, when it happens too young, people think that everything is coming to them, that they're just so special, they don't have to do this and they don't have to do that, and they're so much better than everybody else -- and that's sad."
     

MAXIMUM INSPIRATION FROM MINIMALIST ABSTRACT PAINTER CARMEN HERRERA

     Here's your latest weekly dose of inspiration from Creative Late Bloomers who first found success in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s and who are still going strong. Last week we featured 96-year-old memoirist Diana Athill. This week's selection, Carmen Herrera is still painting at 98.

ABSTRACT PAINTER CARMEN HERRERA

Carmen Herrera, photo by Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu
from the website of Phaidon, publisher of Vitamin P2

HER LATE-BLOOMING STORY: Although she began painting in her 20s, Carmen Herrera did not sell a painting until she was 89 years old. Now she is considered a pioneer of Geometric Abstraction. Her paintings hang in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Museum in London. 

LATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT: Featured in two exhibitions earlier this year: Order, Chaos and the Space Between at the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona from February 6-May 5, 2013; The Geometric Unconscious: A Century of Abstraction at the Sheldon Museum of Art in Nebraska from October 5, 2012-January 20, 2013

Carmen Herrera's Blanco y Verde (1960)
 Smithsonian American Art Museum collection

UPCOMING: Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C.  from October 25, 2013-March 2, 2014. This exhibit is scheduled to travel to The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami (March 28, 2014-June 22, 2014); Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento (September 21, 2014-January 11, 2015), Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City (February 6, 2015-May 17, 2015); Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock (October 16, 2015-January 17, 2016) and Delaware Museum of Art in Wilmington (March 5, 2016-May 29, 2016).

ON GROWING OLD: "(Being 20) is not an easy time. A lot of things are coming to you that you're not ready to absorb. You have to get old and wrinkled and grey-haired before you know what they are talking about."

NO ONE EVER SAID IT WOULD BE EASY:  Born in Cuba in 1915, Carmen Herrera moved to New York with her husband Jesse Loewenthal in 1939. After World War II,  the couple lived in Paris where Herrera joined a group of abstract painters and started to develop her painting style: minimalist abstracts dominated by straight lines and brilliant colors. Back in New York, she was refused a gallery show because she was a woman. She also suspected that being Cuban didn't help her either. Supported by her husband, who worked as a schoolteacher, she continued to paint, always in the same style for more than 60 years. 

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER GIVE UP: Last year, Carmen Herrera's work was included in Vitamin P2, an overview of the best new contemporary paintings from around the world published by Phaidon. On the Phaidon website, she and others artists featured in the book were profiled. Her interlocateur concluded the interview by asking her "what next?" Herrera responded: "What a question to ask a 97 year old! However, since you asked, I will respond. I want to make larger works, but then there is the problem of getting them in and out of this studio -- the lift is tiny, the staircase crooked, and I never go out. So again, I have choices to make -- how to make them larger, or seem larger, or maybe make the world smaller?"