August 21, 2003
Writers’ program expands into romance
There’ll be a little romance in UW Extension’s Writers’ Program this fall, but it won’t be among the students. The program is introducing a track on romance writing, created with the guidance of best-selling romance writer Jayne Ann Krentz.
“Romance is the biggest seller of all the genres,” said extension senior director Muriel Dance. “Fantasy and mystery combined don’t equal the number of romances written and read.”
So it’s not surprising that romance is just the latest track to be added to Extension’s popular certificate programs in writing. Begun in 1989, the programs offer a series of three noncredit evening classes over the course of nine months, leading to a certificate. Other programs are in literary fiction, popular fiction, nonfiction, poetry and writing for children.
Krentz, who sits on the Writers’ Program board, is the author of 31 New York Times best sellers and has more than 30 million books in print. She also writes under the names Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle. Krentz collaborated with local publishing consultant and former president of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Jennifer McCord to design the curriculum for the new program, which is open to any interested writer. The course will be taught by Mary Clare Kersten, who was an editor for 12 years at Silhouette Romances.
Also new in the Writers’ Program this year is a second-year series called Manuscript Development and Completion. The series is a replacement for what used to be called the Advanced Program, designed for graduates of the Writers’ Program and writers with considerable experience.
“This change came out of a brainstorming process we did with our board and our instructors,” Dance said. “They told us the longer forms — the novel, the memoir — need one teacher to guide a person through all three quarters. So each track in this new program will be taught by one central, well established writer who will bring in guests to complement his or her ideas.”
There are four Manuscript Development and Completion tracks: literary novel, mystery novel, popular novel and memoir. Unlike the first-year programs, these require an application and a writing sample.
Dance says all the programs are designed to be pragmatic in that they include information about publishing as well as information about writing. John Keegan is one former student who has found success since enrolling in the very first fiction program, in 1989-90. A practicing attorney, he has had two novels published and his third is due in September.
“I was a little skeptical when I signed up,” Keegan reported. “I was afraid it would be all lecture, but I was pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be a workshop with critiques, and that was very useful for me.”
Keegan hasn’t quit his day job, but that’s OK with him. He estimates he spends 12 to 15 hours every week writing — “I do it because it’s a passion” — and will return to the Extension classroom this spring to teach a unit on creating believable characters.
Another satisfied customer is Kathy Schultz, who signed up for the nonfiction program in 1997-98. “I actually have a master’s in counseling, but I had had a lot of different jobs,” Schultz said. “I wanted to get into magazine writing but didn’t know how to go about it.”
In the program, Schultz learned that trade magazines are a good place to start, and since she was working for a leased car program at the time, she sold her first piece to Automotive Fleet. She then did an unpaid internship at Seattle Magazine.
“It just snowballed from there,” she said.
Schultz has a husband with a job, but she says that if she were single today, she would be able to support herself with her writing.
In addition to the programs already mentioned, Extension has the same three-class series for screen writing and playwriting, although the latter is a for-credit class. Both use actors from the School of Drama to read the works-in-progress. And it’s possible to take literary fiction and nonfiction in a distance learning format.
Dance says Extension has rarely had to struggle to attract people to the writing programs, although not everything that has been offered has been successful. A science-fiction class was offered a few years ago, for example, but there weren’t enough takers. A second-year program in poetry also was dropped.
But the Northwest is a rich place from which to draw writers. While in New York City recently, Dance visited Poets & Writers, the nonprofit literary organization. Knowing that they sponsored state-by-state literary contests, she asked when Washington’s would be.
“They said, ‘Oh we did one there a few years ago and we got more submissions than from any other state where we’ve run the competition. And the quality of the writing was extraordinary.’ It was interesting to see how the Northwest is viewed on the national scene.”
