It's never too late to write

Do I dare admit I'm writing a novel? Geez. Isn't everyone?

I do not, however, have lofty dreams of fame and fortune. With my arts editor-slash-community theater actor schedule, I merely have aspirations of finishing the darn book.

Which is why I like the theme of next Tuesday's authors' panel at Kepler's Books. It's called "Women Empowered: Picking Up the Pen Later in Life." See, it's never too late to finish your great Hungarian-American novel.

Three authors are scheduled to speak starting at 7:30 p.m. Betty Auchard will talk about her book "Dancing in My Nightgown: The Rhythms of Widowhood," which she wrote after the loss of Denny, her husband of 49 years. Sounds like she's managed to find inspiration and even humor in her stories (and her website has some pretty cute greeting cards she designed).

Gilberta Guth (pictured) also turned to memoir in her "The Fighter Pilot's Wife." I can only imagine the anxiety of being on the ground waiting for your husband to land safely -- melded with the excitement of living in far-flung lands.

And in "The End of Romance: A Memoir of Love, Sex, and the Mystery of the Violin," Norma Barzman harks back to 1973, when she was a blacklisted screenwriter living in Southern France. All this in the midst of the resurgence of fascism in Italy.

Pictured: Gilberta Guth