Here’s what’s on my mind: Age-based awards are outdated and discriminatory, even if unintentionally so. Emerging writers are emerging writers.

I think I have pretty much emerged (which is different from “breaking through”; we authors, like so many larvae, have many phases to endure, should we survive). But I was definitely an emerging author in my late 40s. And while I very much doubt that I would have been picked for any of those illustrious awards had I been eligible, it has frustrated me endlessly that I could not even lose on the merits of my work.

I can name 10 writers in two minutes who might well have garnered such prizes but for the date on their birth certificates. Most, but not all, are women, like Pamela Erens (“The Understory” and “The Virgins”), Rachel Cantor (“A Highly Unlikely Scenario”) and Edith Pearlman, (“Honeydew,” most recently), who “emerged” when past 40.

I do consider this to be a feminist issue — but not only that. Youthful achievement is often linked to privilege. Not everyone can afford to write when young. Some are already working more than one job. Others are raising children, as I was for many years. Still others may not feel safe expressing themselves, for any number of reasons. I teach, and it is impossible to exaggerate how much time I put into giving women “permission” to write, a process that often includes encouraging them to tape a piece of paper to their computers that says, “No one ever has to read a word I write” — a trick that worked for me.

Beyond the prizes themselves — the actual money, the acclaim, the lifelong honor — age-based awards perpetuate the notion that there is a sanctioned norm for when one should get started in a career. For this reason, the remedy is not to be found in awards for 5 Over 50 or 9 Over 90, though I appreciate the intentions behind the few that exist for older emerging writers. The remedy is to take age out of the matter altogether, and focus on stage.