You might think that at 72 years old, Judith Turner-Yamamoto ’75 is a literary late bloomer — that the seed for her acclaimed novel, Loving the Dead and Gone, an absorbing account of how death and tragedy bind together North Carolina women in two rural towns, was planted years ago while Judith waited for the story — her story — to germinate.

You’d be wrong, of course. While the media fawns over the Rowlings, Grishams and Lees of the literary world, it's rare for an author to receive widespread acclaim right out of the gate. Most, like Judith, have spent years writing (and rewriting) in the shadows before stepping into the light.

So how does a first-time novelist launch a book to such heights? “This isn’t so much a storyline of procrastination as it is one of tenacity,” Judith says. “We hear about those rare, break-through authors, but the rest of us are toiling in the trenches for years.”

Maybe so, but not every debut novel receives the kind of acclaim that Loving the Dead and Gone did when it was released in 2022. The book was a Gold Medal recipient at the Independent Publisher Book Awards, a finalist for the First Horizon Debut Novel and The Eric Hoffer Award, and won the North Carolina Society of Historians Historical Book Award.

And while this may be Judith’s first novel, writing is hardly new to her. She has authored more than 1,000 articles for publications such as the Los Angeles Times, Elle, and Travel + Leisure. “Writing has always been a part of me and who I am,” she says.

By "always," Judith means since she was a teenager when she wrote her first story for Seventeen magazine. Well, almost. She never submitted it, lacking the confidence, but she was convinced she had stories to tell. Just as importantly, she knew she had the resolve to tell them.

Judith recalls her father, near the end of his life, telling the story of her first bicycle with training wheels. One day, unexpectedly, he removed them and threatened to return the bicycle to the store if she didn’t learn to ride before he came home from work.

“My mother told me I spent all day riding and falling, getting up and riding some more,” Judith says. “I skinned both knees, but by dark, I had learned to ride on my own.”

The allegory is not lost on Judith. “I don’t remember the day, but I can certainly see that toughness in me as a child because I had the tenacity to see this book through as an adult,” she says. “You could say I’ve skinned a few knees over the years.”

Loving the Dead and Gone can be traced to 1989 when Judith wrote it as a series of short stories before her first literary agent convinced her to weave them into a more cohesive novel.

Over the years, she would write and set the book aside, then return to it. She could have easily given up were it not for that persistent muse — or muses — within. “I just kept hearing voices, and there were stories that demanded to be told,” she says.

Along the way, Judith wrote short stories and received fellowships for her work. “Those were signposts and breadcrumbs — affirmations for me to keep going,” she says. “Maybe others would see those signs or crumbs and want to give up, but if you don’t have grit, you can’t do this.”

She credits now-retired Hege Professor of Art Adele Wayman as an early source of affirmation in her writing. Even after all these years, she remembers Adele pulling her aside during an art class her junior year after reading one of her papers. “‘I love your writing,’” Judith recalls Adele saying. “‘You really should think about being an art critic.’”

There was just one problem. “I had no idea what an art critic was,” says Judith. “No one had ever told me I could do anything, so I looked it up.” She added Art History as a major later that week.

Judith has spent a lifetime working in galleries, cultural nonprofits and museums, all while writing art reviews for local publications. Dance, music, books, travel, food — no subject is outside her comfort zone. If it is, she’ll research it.

Been there, written about that, too.

At Guilford, Judith was a double major in Spanish and Art History. You might assume she also minored in Creative Writing or English. Again, you’d be wrong. It was French. Not a single writing discipline to lean on and Judith wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Isn’t that the beauty of a liberal arts education?” she says, laughing. “It’s said so many times because it’s true. Guilford’s greatest gift is that it teaches you how to think and how to find your own gifts.”

Like most authors, you can draw a Venn diagram of Judith’s life and the characters in her book, and there is plenty of overlap. She says writing about growing up in a fractured family, with parents who were unfaithful to each other and detached from parental responsibilities, was “totally cathartic.”

Even more so when she participates in readings at bookstores and book clubs. “You have to get emotionally naked — not just in your writing, but in public,” she says. “I wasn’t ready for that at first, but now it’s kind of a therapy session.”

Judith is 72 now. Loving the Dead and Gone isn’t her last story, just the latest. It’s the first of a trilogy she has planned. Back home in Cincinnati, she has several journals filled with stories and scenes waiting to be stitched together for another book.

“Everything’s there,” she says. “Maybe it’s a few notes on what a character is thinking. Maybe it’s an argument with my husband that I wrote down and can give to a character. All of it flows into my writing. It’s all waiting to come out.”