Budding Writers Often Bloomed in Teacher’s Classroom

Shortly before English professor Pat Kubis retired from Orange Coast College in 1985, members of her novel-writing workshop threw her a retirement party.

As a creative-writing teacher at OCC for 23 years, Kubis had developed a reputation for helping turn prospective writers into published authors. Among the budding writers who blossomed under her guidance are Donald Stanwood (“The Memory of Eva Ryker”), Clive Cussler (“Raise the Titanic”), Alex Thorleifson (“John Wayne: My Life With the Duke” with Pilar Wayne), Doug Muir (“American Reich”), Dorothy McMillan (“Blackbird”), Suzanne Forster (“Undercover Agent”), screenwriter Terry Black (“Dead Heat”), teen-age romance writer Barbara Conklin (“P.S. I Love You”) and dozens more.

At least 60 current and former students showed up at Kubis’ retirement bash to pay tribute to the veteran writing coach.

“As I looked around--it seemed like hundreds of people--and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I was so involved in each of their novels,’ ” Kubis recalled. “At that point I knew that as long as I taught I would never write.”

After 2 decades of nurturing the writing careers of her students, the author of two novels published in the ‘60s decided to take an early retirement and devote full time to her own writing.

It didn’t quite turn out that way, however.

The former El Toro resident and her husband, George, a retired golf course superintendent, retreated to their new lake-front home in Canyon Lake in Riverside County. But once home, she became antsy and returned to teaching part time at Chapman College in Orange in the fall of 1985 as head of the novel-writing program.

Then there were the animals.

Shocked to read about the inhumane conditions at an animal holding pen in nearby Lake Elsinore, Kubis founded the Lake Elsinore Animal Friends in 1987. The group’s goal of building a humane, private animal shelter became a full-time job for Kubis. She recruited volunteers, lobbied the City Council and helped raise funds.

“I did not want to end up being ‘The Animal Lady of Elsinore,’ but it was such an inhumane situation,” Kubis said. “There was tremendous overcrowding of animals in the cages and cats without litter boxes, and with so many animals, the water bowls were turned over. The animals were kept there for 7 days and taken to Riverside to be (destroyed), so they never had a chance to be adopted. Nobody stepped forward to do anything, so I felt, ‘This is it. It’s got to be done.’ I must say, all my students thought I was crazy. They kept asking me, ‘Why are you doing this?’ ”

After 13 months of work, “the LEAF Shelter” opened in Lake Elsinore in October. And Kubis, having quit teaching at Chapman last May, is finally doing what she set out to do when she “retired” more than 3 years ago.

Six days a week, from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., she sits down at the computer in her book-lined den, where she is working on not one but two books: a New Age novel about reincarnation and a Nazi suspense novel, which she started working on before leaving OCC. She also plans to take a screen-writing class and is thinking of writing either a TV script or a novel about animal welfare.

“My New Year’s resolution is to do nothing but write,” said Kubis, 60. “It’s kind of a funny thing but getting sidetracked with the animal shelter was really a difficult thing. What I discovered is that when you have your mind so totally absorbed in one subject, it’s really difficult to get absorbed in another subject. Now it’s like I’m sitting at my typewriter saying, ‘Come on, let’s get going.’ ”

After 25 years of teaching writing, Kubis has no interest in reading any more student manuscripts.

But that doesn’t mean she has stopped being a teacher.

She still enjoys lecturing occasionally--most recently at the annual Writer’s Conference sponsored by the Chapman College English department. Her next lecture will be at Cerritos College on Feb. 18. Kubis laughingly calls the seminar “a 1-day crash course in how to write a best-selling novel.”

The many publishing successes of her own former students have given Kubis great satisfaction over the years.

“Oh, my goodness, yes,” said Kubis, a friendly woman with a gift of gab and a throaty laugh. “People who want to write have an intense, driving desire that gnaws at them, and when they fulfill that, they blossom. For a writer who isn’t able to achieve his life’s dream, it’s a terrible unhappiness. I’ve always said my writers are like roses in a rose garden and I feel like a gardener, and when they bloom, they’re so beautiful.”

From her perspective as a writing teacher, Kubis found predicting which students would go on to publish and who would not was never an easy call.

Whenever a student came up to her at the beginning of a class and said, ‘Do I have what it takes to be a writer?’ she’d say, ‘Ask me at the end of the year.’

“People who really seemed to have little talent have done very well,” she said. “I heard about several students--it’s taken them a long time--but they finally broke into print. I always tell my students writing is a lot like golf: You get out there and you practice and you practice and eventually--if you really want to publish--you will.

“Of course, you expect the brilliant ones to publish, yet not all of them do either. And the one who hangs in there and plugs along often makes it into print. The three most brilliant (student) writers I have ever seen, I’ve never seen their work in print.”

One of those students was a successful architect whose interest in architecture was apparently much stronger than his interest in writing.

“Usually if a writer has a stronger other occupation, they may never break into print,” she said, adding that it takes the same time and commitment to become a successful writer as it does to become a success in architecture or any other profession.

Kubis recalls Costa Mesa screenwriter Terry Black, who took her fiction fundamentals class and her novel-writing workshop, as being one of the committed ones.

“Terry was a wonderful writing student,” she said. “Terry actually couldn’t be anything else but a writer because that’s what he wanted to be. It took him a long time (to succeed), but he was so unique, so individual. I always called him the next Thurber. He was doing wonderful work almost from the beginning. We’d literally roll on the floor laughing when he’d read. But he would get discouraged sometimes. It was just that humor in the novel field is very hard to publish. I think when he moved into film he really found his medium.”

Kubis, who served as a literary consultant and agent for a year in the early ‘80s, said 99% of the manuscripts an agent receives are unpublishable. The reason for that, she said, is because the people did not learn their technique: plotting, structure, characterization and viewpoint.

“I used to tell my writers, ‘When you finish my course, you’re going to be a professional.’ And that’s what writing is all about: being a professional,” she said.

For someone contemplating starting a novel, Kubis suggests spending 6 months in a fiction technique class and at least a year in a workshop: “Seek out somebody who knows how to write and learn to write as a craftsman.”

Kubis said it was no fluke that her former students who have been published made it into print.

“They were all fine writers and they knew what they were doing. They knew how to approach an editor, how to write a synopsis, how to do a package (prepare a synopsis and three sample chapters) and submit it to an agent. They really knew their way around.”

By not taking a writing class, Kubis said, “you may lose 10 or 12 years in muddling around until you finally figure out what a novel really is. I’m not saying if you muddle around you might not get there, but a good writing teacher can save you years of time.”

Kubis has no regrets about spending 25 years of her life as a writing teacher, a time in which she received an Orange County Arts Alliance award for “outstanding service to the arts” and co-wrote a popular textbook called “Writing Fiction, Non-Fiction and How to Publish” with Bob Howland.

Although teaching took her away from her own writing, she said: “I never wanted to be just a writer. I’ve always wanted to do something worthwhile and constructive and also be an artist in my own right. To be a constructive force in someone’s life is probably one of the greatest things that can happen.

“I know a lot of writers who became alcoholics and got tied up in their egos and they’ve destroyed themselves. I’d rather share and love and have my students be successful and famous and”--she laughed--”I wanted to be successful and famous too. I mean, I want it all.”

Romance Writers: Rita Rainville, author of 13 Silhouette romances, will discuss “Common Mistakes New Writers Make” at the pre-meeting workshop of the Orange County chapter of Romance Writers of America at 10:30 a.m. today at the Fullerton Public Library.

After lunch, historical romance writer Karyn Witmer-Gow, who writes under the pen name Elizabeth Kary, will discuss “Turning Research into a Successful Story Line.” Cost to non-members is $6.

Book Signing: Anaheim author Valerie King will sign copies of her new Regency romance for Zebra Books, “A Daring Wager,” from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday at B. Dalton Bookseller in El Toro.