Here are the last four
authors who had day jobs while creating their works of art. If they could/can
do it, so can we. No more excuses about not having any time.
6. T.S. Eliot – Bank
clerk and publisher
In 1917, when he was 29 years old, Eliot began working in the foreign transactions department of Lloyds Bank of London, a post he would hold for the next eight years. Smack in the middle of that time, Eliot published his masterful poem “The Waste Land” (1922), which won him an international reputation, along with other poems and essays. Eliot thrived on the routine of office life so much that when some of the members of the famed Bloomsbury group offered to set up a monetary fund in order to enable him to give up the job at Lloyds, he declined. He finally left the bank to become a director at the publishing house Faber & Faber, where he worked into his seventies. While in that post, he continued to publish his own poetry while shepherding into print the work of other great modern poets such as Ezra Pound, W.H. Auden, Marianne Moore, Louis MacNeice and Ted Hughes.
7. Wallace Stevens – Insurance executive
After graduating from New York Law School and working for various law firms in New York City, Stevens made the switch to insurance. In 1916, he began working at Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company in Connecticut, where he would work for the rest of his life, becoming vice-president in 1934. The steady job (and comfortable income) didn’t stifle Stevens’ creativity, beginning with the publication of his first book, the critically lauded “Harmonium,” in 1923. By the early 1950s, Stevens was considered one of America’s greatest contemporary poets, and he won a Pulitzer Prize for his “Collected Poems,” published in 1954.
8. William Carlos Williams – Doctor
A native of Rutherford, New Jersey, Williams studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he forged friendships with fellow poets Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle (H.D.). In 1910, he returned to his hometown and devoted himself to a dual career as a doctor and poet. He maintained a thriving medical practice for the next 41 years, often jotting poems on his prescription pads. Despite his focus on local life, he remained active in the avant-garde poetry world, publishing in various journals and winning literary prizes (including the National Book Award in 1950 for the third volume of his five-book-long epic “Paterson”). In 1951, Williams suffered the first of a series of strokes and was forced to give up his work as a doctor. He continued writing poetry until his death in 1963, winning a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his last work, “Pictures from Brueghel, and Other Poems.”
9. Toni Morrison – Editor and teacher
After teaching literature at Texas Southern University and Howard University, Toni Morrison took a job editing textbooks for a division of Random House in Syracuse, New York in 1964. The newly single mother of two young sons, she got up before dawn to work on what would become her first novel, “The Bluest Eye” (1970). Morrison later transferred to Random House’s New York City offices and began working as a fiction editor, even as she was publishing her own work with Knopf (owned by Random House). Only after she published her third novel “Song of Solomon,” which won the 1977 National Book Critics Circle Award, did Morrison quit her editing job. She later taught writing and literature classes at the State University of New York at Albany and Princeton University, all the while adding to the formidable body of work that would earn her the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature.
In 1917, when he was 29 years old, Eliot began working in the foreign transactions department of Lloyds Bank of London, a post he would hold for the next eight years. Smack in the middle of that time, Eliot published his masterful poem “The Waste Land” (1922), which won him an international reputation, along with other poems and essays. Eliot thrived on the routine of office life so much that when some of the members of the famed Bloomsbury group offered to set up a monetary fund in order to enable him to give up the job at Lloyds, he declined. He finally left the bank to become a director at the publishing house Faber & Faber, where he worked into his seventies. While in that post, he continued to publish his own poetry while shepherding into print the work of other great modern poets such as Ezra Pound, W.H. Auden, Marianne Moore, Louis MacNeice and Ted Hughes.
7. Wallace Stevens – Insurance executive
After graduating from New York Law School and working for various law firms in New York City, Stevens made the switch to insurance. In 1916, he began working at Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company in Connecticut, where he would work for the rest of his life, becoming vice-president in 1934. The steady job (and comfortable income) didn’t stifle Stevens’ creativity, beginning with the publication of his first book, the critically lauded “Harmonium,” in 1923. By the early 1950s, Stevens was considered one of America’s greatest contemporary poets, and he won a Pulitzer Prize for his “Collected Poems,” published in 1954.
8. William Carlos Williams – Doctor
A native of Rutherford, New Jersey, Williams studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he forged friendships with fellow poets Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle (H.D.). In 1910, he returned to his hometown and devoted himself to a dual career as a doctor and poet. He maintained a thriving medical practice for the next 41 years, often jotting poems on his prescription pads. Despite his focus on local life, he remained active in the avant-garde poetry world, publishing in various journals and winning literary prizes (including the National Book Award in 1950 for the third volume of his five-book-long epic “Paterson”). In 1951, Williams suffered the first of a series of strokes and was forced to give up his work as a doctor. He continued writing poetry until his death in 1963, winning a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his last work, “Pictures from Brueghel, and Other Poems.”
9. Toni Morrison – Editor and teacher
After teaching literature at Texas Southern University and Howard University, Toni Morrison took a job editing textbooks for a division of Random House in Syracuse, New York in 1964. The newly single mother of two young sons, she got up before dawn to work on what would become her first novel, “The Bluest Eye” (1970). Morrison later transferred to Random House’s New York City offices and began working as a fiction editor, even as she was publishing her own work with Knopf (owned by Random House). Only after she published her third novel “Song of Solomon,” which won the 1977 National Book Critics Circle Award, did Morrison quit her editing job. She later taught writing and literature classes at the State University of New York at Albany and Princeton University, all the while adding to the formidable body of work that would earn her the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature.
From http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/9-famous-authors-with-day-jobs
