A new project called Bookbite, which was launched in February 2010 by the national reading charity Booktrust, aims to encourage people over 60 to engage more with reading and writing for pleasure, and provides a range of web and paper-based resources to get them started. In this article, the author accounts his visit to the project and how he met two writers in their 80s who have just published their first books. He discusses how these writers' journeys, as learners and writers, testify to the often-latent skill, talent and energy of older people--all things the Bookbite project means to tap into and encourage.