USD Magazine, Winter 2001

ALUMNI ~ GALLERY

•CLASS OF '65• ROMANCING THE TOME Admit it.At some time in our lives,we've all picked up one of those r-\.. steamy, bodice-ripper paperbacks with the shirtless Fabio-look– ing hunk on the cover. Mary (Williams) Schaller writes under the pen

name Tori Phillips, after her daughter, Victoria, and son, Phillip.

But have you ever wondered, while guiltily scanning the pages, who is behind such exotic tales of fanciful longing and scorching romance? How about Mary (Williams) Schaller, a 57-year-old mother of two who is an expert in Shakespearian history and lives in a quietVirginia sub– urb with her husband of 35 years. "Me being a romance writer has done wonderful things for my hus– band's reputation at work," Schaller says of husband Martin. "People ask him if he inspires me, and he'll just smile - I guess they think he's a stud muffin."

of the master's works,she penned a play compiled from Shakespeare's scenes into one production called "All the World is a Stage." At the urging of a friend , she sent it off to a publisher. "As of now, it has sold over I0,000 copies, mainly to high schools.'' says Schaller, "and it has been performed over 500 times, including in Canada, London and Australia." With her own kids off to college, Schaller tried her hand at writing her favorite form of fiction, mysteries. A friend read the manuscript and told Schaller the mystery was a bit transparent, but the romance between the characters was intriguing. "I had never even read a romance. So the next day I went to the book– store and grabbed each one, as well as a book on how to write a romance and get it published," Schaller says. Three years, two manuscripts and a pile of rejection slips later, she published Fools Paradise in 1996. "My agent called me, and Iwas folding laundry, and I just sat down on the bed and shook when she began talking about advances and royalty rates," recalls Schaller of the day she became a published author. Since then, she has written a series (Silent Knigh~ Halloween Knigh~ Lady of the Knight, etc.) based on a medieval-era family that has stretched into three generations. While romance novels are her bread and butter, Schaller is trying her hand at nonfiction this year with Papa Was a Boy in Gray, a collection of interviews she conducted with women whose fathers fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. The six-year project grew out of a voluntary historian role she took on for the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Harlequin writer sells more than I million copies - and counting

Schaller, a 1965 theater arts graduate whose seven books for Harlequin Historicals have sold more than I million copies, didn't set out to be a romance writer. Rather, she dabbled in journalism (writing a column for the USO student newspaper under the pen name "Lambert the Lion" and contributing to Teen Magazine) and dreamt of a show biz career. But like so many women at the time, her dreams were sidetracked when she met her husband and had two children."I just sort of piddled with writing, doing poetry and writing in my journal," Schaller says of her child-rearing years. The creative bug bit again in 1979, when she began teaching Shakespeare to teens through aVirginia parks and rec class and serving as a docent for the Folger Shakespeare Library. To give her students a taste

"I was up to my ears in little old ladies, and my agent said, 'There is a book in there,' " says Schaller, who selected 21 of her favorite stories to be published."These are women whose fathers had one-on-one conversations with Robert E. Lee." Her advice for wannabe authors: never give up and don't plan on getting rich . "It's a business that can break your heart," she says, "but never take 'no' as a final answer."

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