I’m Kate. I’m 59 and a half and I’m going back to school. In September 2025, I’m starting an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College in London.

I’m serious about writing. I want to learn everything I can about writing because I’d like it to be my next career. That may be wishful thinking, but I’m determined to give it a go.

It means reimagining myself as a writer, rather than a coach, which is what I am now. I work with mid-life, mid-career women who are struggling with the societal and personal barriers to success at senior levels (the glass ceiling still alive and well). I’ve run my own business for 19 years. I’m not stopping, but I’m definitely dialling down the priority. And I’m changing my idea of who I am and what my priorities are. Writing is first now, coaching and running a business definitely second.

That’s a big shift, and it’s a bit scary. Stepping into the unknown in many ways.

So I thought I’d write about it. What’s it like to make a major career shift in your late 50s and early 60s? How does it feel? What do you do with the emotions it evokes? How do you manage when other people react in unexpected ways? When your financial basis in life is now completely different? When you have to create and learn and share that vulnerability with other people, maybe even the wide world?

If you’re interested in writing, or in making changes in later life, I’m here for you.

As it happens, how it really is.

Writing life.