May 15, 2000
Colleagues pool together to send staff member to national writing conference
By Barbara McKenna
At lunchtime, staff member Barbara Cool Lee wraps up her work in the Kresge Faculty
Services Center and heads out to her other office--the passenger seat of her '92 Toyota
pickup. Once there, she opens her laptop computer and writes.
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| Staff member Barbara Lee has written a manuscript that places her among the finalists in a national competition. Lee will be able to attend the awards ceremony for that competition thanks to support from campus colleagues. |
Lee's manuscript, titled "In Deep Water," is being considered in the
"Romantic Suspense/Gothic" category for unpublished authors. The winner
will be named at the organization's annual conference, which will be held in July
in Washington, D.C.
Lee heard the news with mixed feelings. "I was thrilled, but one of my first
thoughts was, 'There's no way I can go,' " she recalls. "I didn't see how
I could scrape together the money for airfare and hotels. But people in the business
and friends were telling me that I couldn't miss this opportunity."
While Lee tried to figure out how to finance her trip, a plot was hatched by colleagues
Julie Brower and John Jordan to help her on her way. The two sent out a letter to
some 50 faculty and staff asking for donations to help send Lee to Washington.
Nearly 40 people responded, donating a total of $1,500--enough to cover the conference
registration, airfare, hotel, and meals. "People were thrilled to contribute,"
says Brower, undergraduate adviser for the Literature Department. "We even had
donations from people who were out of the country and one from a faculty member who
no longer works here."
"Barbara has been so helpful to so many people," says Jordan, a professor
of literature and chair of the Literature Department. "She has a lot of computer
expertise and many of us have projects we've taken to her. She is the one, locally,
who bails us out. We're all in her debt and it was nice to have some way other than
verbal thanks to acknowledge that. Plus, we all feel a lot of respect for someone
who dedicates her life to writing, and were pleased to be able to support that work."
The check was presented to Lee at a gathering in the Faculty Services Office in honor
of her birthday. The unsuspecting Lee showed up expecting the usual cake and candles
and instead got the surprise of her life. "I opened up the envelope and saw
the check," she remembers. "I was shocked. I burst into tears."
"When she opened the card," Brower says, "her eyes started to water.
We got a chair under her right away. She was definitely looking weak in the knees."
"I was so touched that so many people participated," Lee says, adding with
a laugh, "Now I have the conference dates memorized because I am really going
to go."
As a finalist, Lee will have special opportunities to meet with publishers and agents.
The honor gives her work credibility that is already prompting queries from editors.
Lee's story is set on a lighthouse island based loosely on Point Sur. The main character
is a woman who goes to the island to oversee a remodeling of the lighthouse. The woman
has epilepsy and has lived a very sheltered life as a result. She decides to take
on the lighthouse project as a way of establishing her independence. One night a
wounded man washes ashore. He turns out to be a good guy, Lee says, but of course
that's not immediately apparent. Lee describes him as a sweetheart, adding, "He's
fictional, so he doesn't sit around drinking beer and watching television."
Do the characters fall in love? "Of course!" Lee laughs.
Lee wrote this manuscript on a laptop, but her previous manuscript, which has a similar
setting and shares some storylines, was penned by hand. Lee, who has worked at the
university since the mid-1980s, says she took a year's leave at one point to try
and dedicate herself full-time to her writing. "I thought you needed to have
large blocks of time to write. But you don't. It's like exercising, where you create
this pattern. No matter what I'm doing at work, working on a database or whatever,
I know that when I get in the passenger seat, I focus on my book. I go every day.
On rainy days I take an umbrella and on sweltering days I roll down the window."
Lee is already planning her next book, which she says has a "Sam Spade"
feel to it. Like the others, it will have a level of suspense to it and, of course,
a happy ending. But, as recent events have proved, romance fiction isn't the only
place where happy endings occur.
