A very interesting post from Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings has got me pondering the way we change over time. If you think about it, we aren’t the same people we were in our twenties or at other times in our lives. Our identities are even what you might call flexible as we learn new things, encounter new people, and develop our interests. The things that happen to us also impact us, and those things change us, too.

Writers change like everyone else does. Some change the genres in which they write. Others change careers to become writers. It’s interesting to see their development over time, and it gives us a look at the way people evolve, change, and become different people over time.

For instance, Georgette Heyer started her writing career as an author of romantic suspense. In fact, she was one of the important influences in the regency romance subgenre. In the early 1930’s, she began to write detective stories. While she also did continue writing romance novels, she developed herself as a writer of crime fiction, too. If you read both her romances and her crime novels, you’ll see there are similarities. But Heyer’s detective fiction showed a new side of her writing personality.

Most people think of Elmore Leonard as a writer of crime fiction and thrillers. Novels like Get Shorty, Mr. Majestyk, and Maximum Bob have solidified his reputation as one of the real talents in American crime fiction. But he didn’t start that way. Leonard started by writing Westerns. In the 1950s and 1960s, his focus was Western novels and short stories. His work was highly regarded and considered influential. It wasn’t until 1969’s The Big Bounce that he started writing crime thrillers with a dash of wit. One reason for the switch could be pragmatic: the Western wasn’t selling as well as it had. It’s also been said that, as Leonard was writing Westerns, he became more interested in the ‘bad guys’ of his novels than in the other characters. Whatever the actual reasons, Leonard’s focus turned to crime fiction as he and his writing evolved.

Adrian Hyland studied literature at university, and in 2006, published Diamond Dove, the first of two crime novels to feature Emily Tempest. At the time, there was a lot of hope (a-hem)  that he’d continue with that series. He didn’t, though, and went on to do other things. One of those things was the 2011 non-fiction book Kinglake-350, the story of the Victoria brush fires of 2009. After another hiatus from fiction publication, Hyland introduced another protagonist, Senior Constable Jesse Redpath, in 2021’s Canticle Creek. The Wiregrass, Jesse Redpath #2, was published in 2023. He’s also a university professor as well as an active member of Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre, which is a hub for writers and literary enthusiasts. While writing and literature have always been a part of Hyland’s life, his story also shows how people change, evolve, and respond to their growth in flexible ways.

Some crime writers started in very different fields, and then moved on to writing as their lives and interests changed. Sulari Gentill, for instance, studied astrophysics at university. During her time there, though, she began to study law, and graduated with a law degree. Then, she worked in corporate law for a number of years. As she herself has said, though,

‘I… just wanted to tell stories.’

So, she began to write crime fiction. Since then, she’s written the popular and well-regarded Rowland Sinclair historical crime fiction series. She’s also written standalone crime fiction/suspense novels (After She Wrote Him/Crossing the Lines, The Woman in the Library, The Mystery Writer), and she’s working on a YA trilogy. It just goes to show that as we go on in life, we change, our identities change, and so do our interests.

Geoffrey McGeachin also changed professions to pursue a writing career. Originally from Melbourne, he was a successful commercial photographer who worked in several different places in the world, including a bit of time in the US. After he returned to Australia, he continued his work as a photographer; he taught photography, too. But he also began his writing career. He wrote three Alby Murdoch crime novels, and then three historical crime novels featuring Charlie Berlin. He also wrote a standalone novel.

And these two authors are by no means the only ones who’ve changed (or added) careers to become writers. In fact, some writers use their backgrounds in other careers to inform their writing (e.g. Katherine Howell, John Grisham, and Rebecca Bradley). And that’s the thing about our selves and our identities. They do change over time, and each of us is impacted by those changes, by our choices, and by the things that happen to us.

Thanks, Karen, for the insightful post and inspiration. Folks treat yourself to Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings. There you’ll find rich discussion of all sorts of books and bookish matters.

ps. Thanks, San Diego Zoo, for the great chameleon picture!

*NOTE: the title of this post is a line from David Bowie’s Changes.