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STORYTELLERS: Stephen Elliott
(top) is teaching intermediate fiction writing
to 15 students this quarter, including Shenly
Glenn (bottom).
Glenn Matsumura |
as a wannabe pirate, Morgan
Cooke is more nebbish landlubber. The Florida accountant
lives a solitary existence, dining alone at World of
Tacos and throwing darts in a dockside bar.
Enter Morgan’s estranged father, recently released
from prison and eager to search for a booty of gold
ingots. Son and dad soon find themselves on Morgan’s
company yacht in the middle of the Caribbean, chasing
down other pirates in fast boats disguised as shrimpers.
“There are pitched battles at sea and fights in
every conceivable place,” says author Keith Thomson
about the swashbuckling action in Pirates of Pensacola.
“But the treasure is such that it’s worth
taking a shot at it, and it’s clearly better than
Morgan’s fluorescent-lit workstation existence.”
Thomson is reveling in something of a Walter Mitty life
these days as he soaks up reviews of his first novel
in Publisher’s Weekly (a “beguiling,
energetic debut”) and Kirkus Reviews
(a “rollicking debut”).
A screenwriter for Sony, Paramount and Disney, Thomson
had been looking for a change of pace from his often
frustrating day job, and he’d always fantasized
about the pirate life. The day his agent suggested he
write a novel, he signed up for an intermediate fiction
writing course offered by the Continuing Studies Program
(CSP). “I’d heard about [short story writer]
Julie Orringer, but I couldn’t believe writers
of her quality were teaching,” Thomson says. “I
didn’t know you could just sign up.”
That was fall quarter 2002. Thomson workshopped the
first 20 pages of his novel in the course, and sold
it one year later to St. Martin’s Press. Orringer,
he adds, was “the perfect teacher,” and
he acknowledges her help in the book.
Among CSP’s evening offerings for adults—everything
from Pre-Columbian Archaeology to Why Sinatra Matters—an
increasing number of students are discovering its “writer’s
studio.” This spring, for example, CSP is offering
17 courses in writing, plus authors reading from their
work and a panel discussion about publishing. Beginning,
intermediate and advanced fiction writing consistently
draw big enrollments, and there’s the occasional
class in poetry, playwriting, screenwriting—even
Food Writing from Soup to Nuts.
Most faculty are former Wallace Stegner Fellows at Stanford.
“A whole team of imaginative young writers graduates
from the Stegner program every year,” says CSP
dean Charlie Junkerman. “And on the other side,
we have a very educated population in nearby communities,
60 percent of whom have some sort of graduate or professional
degree.”
Stephen Elliott, a former Stegner Fellow and the author
of five novels, has been teaching in the writer’s
studio since fall quarter 2003 and currently serves
as the Marsh McCall Lecturer and writer’s studio
coordinator. He teaches novel writing and fiction. “A
lot of what we have are people who may not have written
for a while,” he says. “They’re at
a point in their lives where they want to be creative
again—and not just be in sales.”
The writer’s studio offers the occasional course
on how to get a manuscript over the transom at a publishing
house, and literary agents provide their own perspective.
Instructors also speak from experience. “I tell
students that writing is a great hobby, and a wonderful
way to learn about themselves,” Elliott says.
“But it’s a terrible way to make a living.”
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