{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Author! Author!: Peggy Rowe","description":"Have you ever dreamed of becoming a successful writer, but wondered if the moment had already passed? This week, in our \u201cAuthor! Author!\u201d series, we\u2019re sharing stories from people who answered that question by simply starting - often much later, and after building careers elsewhere. These conversations show how the path to authorship isn\u2019t something you find so much as something you clear, step by step, by leaning into the life you\u2019ve already lived. Together, these episodes capture the heart of Second Act Stories: the idea that reinvention doesn\u2019t have an expiration date, and that sometimes the most meaningful work begins after you\u2019ve already lived a few chapters. Peggy Rowe has accomplished a lot in her 87 years. She started her career as a schoolteacher in Baltimore, where she and her husband John \u2013 also a teacher \u2013 raised three sons. It was a pretty normal life by all accounts. But life got extraordinary somewhere along the way. One common thread in the Rowe household was humor, and Peggy had a finely tuned ability to recognize funny and write about it. See, writing has always been her creative outlet. She wrote all the time. She wrote fun poems for her students, which she would later hear them recite on the playground; she wrote short stories that were published in newspapers and magazines; she wrote stories about things that happened in everyday life; and she wrote about her family. Her son Mike (yes, THAT Mike Rowe) loved her stories, but every time she called to share one, he\u2019d tell her, \u201cMom, don\u2019t TELL me about it; sit down and WRITE about it.\u201d This happened a lot. But we\u2019re getting ahead of ourselves. Peggy had a wonderful career as an educator, but it wasn\u2019t until long after that came to an end that her real career took off. When she was 80, Peggy\u2019s first book of humor was published. \u201cAbout My Mother: True Stories of a Horse-Crazy Daughter and Her Baseball-Obsessed Mother: A Memoir\u201d became a New York Times bestseller. Then came more bestsellers. \u201cAbout Your Father and Other Celebrities I Have Known: Ruminations and Revelations from a Desperate Mother to Her Dirty Son\u201d was Peggy\u2019s next bestselling book, when she was 82. \u201cVacuuming in the Nude: And Other Ways to Get Attention,\u201d book number three and bestseller number three, was published when Peggy was 84. Judging by the title, it seems Dirty Jobs run in the family. Her fourth book, \u201cOh No, Not \u201cThe Home\u201d: Observations and Confessions of a Grandmother in Transition,\u201d came two years later. At age 87, Peggy is working on her fifth book and she shows no signs of slowing down. Thankfully. In this inspiring episode, Peggy shares her incredible journey from the classroom to the bestseller list, complete with a few fun stories woven in. ******* If you enjoy Second Act Stories, please leave us a review here. We may read your review on a future episode! Subscribe to the Second Act stories Substack. Check out the Second Act Stories YouTube channel. Follow Second Act Stories on social media: Facebook LinkedIn Instagram Second Act Stories theme music: \u201cBetween 1 and 3 am\u201d by Echoes. ","author_name":"Second Act Stories","author_url":"http:\/\/www.secondactstories.org","html":"