Seth Panitch on Antique, Hidden Potential, and Why It’s Never Too Late to Start Writing
By Max Cooper
Seth Panitch’s Antique is a novel about old objects, emotional inheritance, and a woman trying to rediscover her worth. But beneath its magical premise and antique-world intrigue lies another powerful message: reinvention is always possible.
That idea makes Panitch an especially compelling voice for writers and readers alike. His career has already spanned acting, directing, teaching, playwriting, and filmmaking. After receiving his MFA from the University of Washington’s Professional Actors Training Program, he acted and directed at major Shakespeare festivals around the country. He later became head of the MFA Acting Program at the University of Alabama, directed internationally in Havana, Cuba, and wrote and helmed feature films and Off Broadway plays.
Then, after decades of success in those fields, he turned back to an earlier dream: Antique, the novel.
That journey informs not only the existence of Antique, but also its emotional core. The book follows Grace Schaffer, once a beloved appraiser on an Antiques Roadshow-like television series, who has lost her marriage, her career, and her footing. At a smaller traveling show, she stumbles upon an old necklace that seems to alter her sense of value, and perhaps reality itself. As she begins assigning emotionally driven prices to objects that later sell for exactly what she predicted, Grace is drawn into a search for a lost masterpiece and a deeper confrontation with her own self-worth.
For Panitch, that question, what am I worth?, is universal. He hopes readers will close the book feeling not just entertained, but awakened to parts of themselves they may have neglected. “I hope they can take away a little of my experience in writing the book,” he says, “that there are hidden parts of themselves that deserve to be uncovered, dusted off, and celebrated. That there is magic within us, if we dare to use it.”
That theme of hidden potential extends naturally into his advice for aspiring writers. Panitch’s first and most emphatic point is simple: “IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO START!”
Coming from someone who returned to his earliest ambition after thirty-five years, the statement carries unusual force. Panitch is not speaking theoretically. He is living proof that creative doors do not close just because time has passed. In fact, Antique suggests that lived experience may deepen an artist’s voice rather than diminish it.
Panitch also encourages younger writers to study the people who move them. “I would say to read/listen to as many interviews with writers you admire as possible,” he says. “I believe in modeling myself after my influences, creating a mask, you could say, and wearing that first.”
It is a refreshingly practical perspective. Rather than waiting for an original voice to appear fully formed, Panitch sees imitation as part of the process of growth. “So, I use the structure or style of another artist but view things through my eyes, my experience, and that bends and stretches the mask, until I am ready to dispense with it altogether,” he explains. “Think of it like training wheels until you get your balance, until you hear your voice, and then off you go, pedaling like crazy!”
His own process reflects both discipline and curiosity. “It always begins with an idea, a question,” he says. For Antique, the central question was: “What would you do if you found an object that allowed you to set the price of things, not based on the market, but based on your emotional attachment to it?”
From there, he researches the world, lets the characters emerge, builds detailed outlines, and expands the material through a long first draft before revising rigorously. “The second draft is the chiseling down of that huge mess, and in the process, the story truly emerges, draft by draft,” he says.
That willingness to revise, refine, and keep listening to the material mirrors the thematic journey of Antique itself. Grace’s life has to be broken open before she can see it differently. Value is not fixed. Identity is not static. Meaning changes depending on who is doing the looking.
For fans of Antique wondering whether Grace and the mysterious necklace will return in a sequel, Panitch offers a tantalizing answer. “I think when people finish Antique, they’ll understand why there will not be a sequel per se,” he says, “but the spirit of both of them lives on in my second novel, HARMONY.”
That upcoming book centers on “a struggling musician who discovers a mysterious, antique Panasonic tape player with a cassette tape inside, and on that tape is the voice of one of the most famous Rock musicians from the 1960’s…and perhaps his spirit as well.” He adds, “So, there’s magic, yes, and a whole lot of music of all kinds!”
That continuation of spirit rather than plot feels fitting. Panitch seems drawn to stories where objects are charged with emotional and even supernatural force, where the past speaks into the present, and where characters must decide what to do with the lives they still have left to claim.
In that sense, Antique is more than a novel about appraisal. It is a novel about awakening. It asks readers to consider what parts of themselves they may have mislabeled as outdated, damaged, or no longer useful. It argues that age, memory, and experience are not liabilities but sources of depth.
Perhaps that is why Panitch’s message lands so clearly. Whether he is speaking to readers, writers, or anyone standing uncertainly at the threshold of a new chapter, his outlook is the same: it is not too late. There is still something waiting to be uncovered. There is still magic in the old, the overlooked, and the unfinished.
Antique is available through Amazon and major booksellers.
