Hoyoun Lee

JOURNAL

Age Is a Word

In the latest issue of the Union of Finnish Writers' magazine, author Anja Snellman answers a question rarely asked: How does it feel like to be a seventy-something author in 2025?

ALL SORTS OF TOPICS and themes emerge about a writer's life and ways of writing—and rightly so. But the changes that age brings to a writer's life and work? Rarely addressed. These don't seem to be the sexiest topics. Aging definitely isn’t.

The realities: Middle-aged colleagues fall ill, fade away, grow lonely, withdraw, die, vanish from view. They grow hesitant to attend meetings—let alone parties. Publishers may no longer stay in touch as actively as before; some of the younger staff aren’t even familiar with the older writer’s work.

A sense of abandonment sets in. Hello! Anybody there?

SUSPICIONS START to surface: Are younger colleagues trying to avoid their more wrinkled peers? Is there a quiet assumption that an aging author has lost touch with the times and the themes of youth?

And colleagues the age of your grandparents—if they are seated next to you at events, will they mostly talk about their ailments, their grandkids, funerals? Will they tell the same story several times over the course of a couple of hours?

DYNAMIC, ACTIVE old age is a new phase of life that follows late middle age—a confusing and perhaps even frightening cultural shift that we’re still struggling to understand, let alone put into words, especially in a positive light.

Even if today’s seventy-year-olds are psychologically and physically closer to sixty-somethings, or even fifty-somethings, our lives no longer continue along the familiar arc of middle age.

The rush, the obsession with efficiency and productivity—these gradually begin to fade. It’s hard to deny.

What, then, could our contribution be? How can we bring generations of writers closer together, beyond simply reading one another’s works?

MY SUGGESTION: All-ages panels.

I suggest meetings for writers of all ages to read their work and engage in cross-generational discussions on various themes. I’m so looking forward to conversations about aging between writers in their sixties and seventies and those in their twenties and thirties.

Dear young colleagues: Aging isn’t dreadful—it’s fascinating. I’m making this journey with great curiosity.

We older writers are worth listening to. And we may be the ones who can put this cultural shift into words.