Most of the published lists of authors whose debut books came out later in life are extremely white and majority male...Women writers, especially women of color, face more significant barriers to publication. The majority of women still raise families before they can pursue their own careers. Despite most families having two parents working full-time jobs, women still do the majority of child-rearing and household work.
For the purposes of this list, I have selected women writers whose debut traditionally published full-length work came out after their 35th birthday. Because of the barriers to publishing, many older debuts are self-published, and I had to make a choice on whether to include them; I chose not to, but encourage you to seek them out on your own.
