HALIFAX -- A Nova Scotia senior who recently published her debut novel is proving it’s never too late to achieve your dreams.
Dorothy MacIntosh, 87, has just ticked a major item off her bucket list, and the inspiration came from a very unexpected place.
Nicknamed 'the old violin', an instrument handed down through her family for generations would be the inspiration she needed.
“It happened to be sitting here in the living room, and it was where you picked it up,” says Dorothy. “I said to myself, if that old violin could talk, I wonder what stories it would tell.”
Last winter, the retired schoolteacher sat at the computer at her home in Lyons Brook, N.S., with her dog and co-writer Holly at her side, to piece together what would become the novel she always dreamed of writing.
“It was something that was always in the back of my mind,” says Dorothy.
But what followed caught her by surprise.
“He says, ‘Dorothy, that’s a damn good book! You have to have that printed,” she recalls. “I said, ‘I don’t know anything about printing a book.’ So he called Friesen Press and within a day or so, I got a call back. They wanted me to send them the book!”
Several months later, Dorothy's debut novel 'The Old Violin' is available online and in book stores around the Maritimes.
A first-time published author -- an incredible feat at any age -- but considering Dorothy just turned 87, it’s a story worth sharing.
“I mean, I’m 87 but when I look back on it, life is short and you only have so much time, so make use of it. That’s how the story came about,” she says.
With pictures of their championship horses and family displayed around the house, it’s a timeline of a life well lived. But now the Pictou County senior has a new chapter to tell -- and it's a story that comes with some humour.
"(Her son Larry) said, ‘What's the book about?’ and I said, ‘Well, they took the book because it has no violence, no swearing and no sex’, and Larry looked at me with his mouth half open and said, ‘What the hell did you write about then?,” laughs Dorothy.
As she wrote in her author's bio, Dorothy hopes to leave the next generation with something to think about, even if it’s only a good laugh -- proving age is just a number when it comes to achieving your dreams.
