We were lucky to catch up with Ann Bancroft recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ann, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I love my life as a writer. I know well what it’s like to have a regular job, and while I had good jobs and loved my co-workers, the 9-5 (or 8-7 or 5-4) doesn’t allow for much creative thinking time. I come up with ideas in my writing group, on long walks or bike rides, or just before falling asleep late at night. It’s hard to squeeze in the time to do creative thinking or to do anything with the ideas that emerge, while working a full-time job.
Having the good fortune to have a second career as an author has opened up a life that mixes quiet creativity with stimulating social interactions. I’m “out there,” listening to others and telling my story in ways I never would have before. Now, I have a small pension which relieves me of the stress of constantly hustling to sell my stories. There were years when I worked three part-time jobs and freelanced. When I was doing that, I did get by and loved my freelance work. I don’t regret spending some years building for my financial future, but do wish I could have had more years devoted fully to the creative life. Being an artist or writer requires that you LIVE creatively. That means being open to opportunities, change, and acceptance of the realities of the moment.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a late-life novelist, whose first book, Almost Family, was published in May 2024, when I was 71. I persisted for more than a decade through cancer treatments, rejections (and awards!) before getting published. My book is getting high praise. It is now a finalist for both the Sarton Award for best fiction and Chanticleer Award for best Contemporary and Literary fiction. Almost Family is the story of a successful but emotionally stunted woman facing a life of poor choices, who learns to open herself to love and reconciliation when she meets three unlikely friends in a support group for metastatic cancer patients. Using dark humor, I show how, even with poor prognoses, people with cancer can live full lives, and how friendship can cure some things that the doctors can’t.
For most of my career I was a news reporter, freelance writer and communications director. After my first cancer diagnosis, I retired from a good job because working in a windowless office felt stifling. I determined to spend more time outdoors and to work for myself, learning to write fiction, submitting articles and completing my novel. I’m thrilled that my book is in more than 100 libraries and that complete strangers tell me they loved reading it because it made them both laugh and cry. Now I’m working on a second, very different novel, about growing up in the military during the Vietnam War, and learning the meaning of “home” when there is no such thing in one’s formative years.
As I’ve done when mentoring cancer patients, I want to exemplify the importance of persistence and pursuing your dreams at any stage of life. I lead weekly writing workshops on Zoom aimed at helping writers to find their authentic voices and to generate new story ideas. I also speak to book clubs and on panels at writers conferences.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Being a writer is a solitary pursuit, and the pleasure in it involves getting deep into “the flow,” creating characters that become so real in my mind and on the page that I fall in love with them over time. But because writing is solitary and even introverts need company sometimes, I find meetups, collectives, and writing groups, online or in-person, in which to write and share with others. I’ve met so many lovely people this way, Being an author has stretched my boundaries, making me more comfortable promoting my work, networking and just generally putting myself out there. That’s not a natural state for most writers, but one that I’ve grown into. It’s a thrill to have readers interested in the work I’ve spent so many years creating.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Ah, yes! Because I didn’t know what I didn’t know, I sent an early draft of my book to agents, before hiring an editor. Having spent decades as a journalist, I’m a competent writer, but I’d never written fiction, let alone attempted to have my work published as a novel. But a beloved teacher insisted I send an early draft out to agents, before I’d hired an editor, and before I’d even had other readers go through it.
Two agents rejected it (wisely) and one, at a large, prestigious New York agency, said she loved it. It was like being plucked from the Little League field to start for the San Francisco Giants. They said the manuscript needed work in the middle section, which it surely did. But rather than work with an editor and spend months doing necessary revisions, I cranked out a rewrite like the good daily journalist I’d been, and sent the manuscript back in a few weeks. I didn’t really have a deadline but felt I should, I suppose. Out the draft went, to all the major publishers. I got the nicest rejections! One said she was sure she’d kick herself when she saw it published, but she couldn’t take it right then. All the others had complimentary things to say, but different reasons for rejecting it.
The fact was, the writing was fine, but the story needed tightening, more tension — some serious revision. So this project I’d worked on for three years went into a drawer for another four. In 2018, I learned the San Diego Book Awards was accepting entries of unpublished novels, so I dusted it off and revised some more. It won first place. I found another enthusiastic, big-time agent, but when I told her the saga of previous rejections, she said she couldn’t submit it back to the same publishers, even four years later, and even with the revisions I’d made. Such a thing just isn’t done in the traditional publishing industry. So, back into the drawer it went, and I worked on another novel.

During Covid, I was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time. I went through chemo and multiple surgeries, but while recovering, decided to hire that developmental editor and work on the revisions I should have done years before. The book was much better as a result, and I took my novel, Almost Family, to a hybrid publisher, She Writes Press. It was accepted and published nearly two years later. Holding this book in my hand and discussing it at book clubs now shows me that all the years of ups and downs were worth it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://annbancroftauthor.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bancroftann
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annbancroftauthor
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-bancroft-49606314