Yesterday we were happy to tell you about the star power emanating from 92Y School of Music. Today we get to continue down the same road for students of Unterberg Poetry Center. After learning Jeffrey Schultz was a recipient of Ruth Lilly Fellowship Award, today we learned that Unterberg writing student Helen Simonson has scored a book deal. From 27East.com:

In the early 1990s, Helen Simonson was a stay-at-home mother in Brooklyn, taking care of two young boys and squeezing in an hour or two here and there to attend beginner fiction classes at the 92nd Street Y. Today, Ms. Simonson’s boys are 14 and 16 years old, and their mother is on the fast track to literary success—her first novel, “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand,” has been picked up by Random House as part of an impressive six-figure deal.

Simonson told 27East that she had no idea how to write a novel going into this. “I wasn’t really sure how to write a novel,” she said with a laugh. “I was just kind of stumbling along.”

Looks like those beginner fiction classes at Unterberg really paid off.

Fall classes at Unterberg Poetry Center Writing Program are beginning soon. View them all.

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