The Family Behind the Software
WritePro is a family business founded by Sol Stein, Patricia Day Stein and their son David, pictured on Patricia’s lap. Sol and Patricia previously founded and ran Stein & Day Publishers for 27 years.
After Stein and Day closed, David suggested Sol and Pat could turn their expertise into software to teach writing and help professional writers edit their work. David was working for a subsidiary of Xerox in home office administration and had become an expert in using technology to improve workflow. He knew that he could use his understanding of technology to turn his parents’ expertise into an unparalleled guide to writing.
The first WritePro Lessons were launched in March of 1989 with a total of ten lessons being released over the next few years.
While Sol and Pat worked on the content for the lessons, David designed the functionality of the program, and oversaw the programming of its engine and the conversion the text of each lesson into the interactive lessons that made WritePro a pioneer in the software industry. David also invented the name WritePro to replace “The Stein Creative Writing Programs” as the primary name for the software and the business. David went on designed the functionality of WritePro’s professional writing tools, FirstAid for Writers and FictionMaster.
As C.O.O., David also oversaw daily operations of The WritePro Corporation, including creating the database system for orders and inventory, an automated spreadsheet system for Profit and Loss statements, and oversaw all product testing, manufacturing, customer service and worked with Sol on marketing ideas.
David has also been an expert consultant in the world of IT for over 40 years and also works as a graphic designer. He is now working to continue the legacy of his family by bringing these programs back to the market. David is joined in this endeavor by his brother Leland (pictured in the bottom left corner) who is very experienced in marketing and currently an owner and manager of the Regent Theater in Arlington, MA.
Sol Stein
Sol Stein edited and published some of the outstanding writers of the 20th century, including James Baldwin, David Frost, Jack Higgins, Elia Kazan, Dylan Thomas, Lionel Trilling, W. H. Auden, Jacques Barzun, and three heads of state. He was a prize-winning playwright produced on Broadway, an anthologized poet, the author of nine novels, screenplays, and TV dramas. His novel The Magician sold over one million copies. He also wrote three acclaimed books on writing: Stein on Writing, How to Grow a Novel, and Sol Stein’s A-Z Guide to Writing Success and Publishing Know-How.
Stein lectured on creative writing at Columbia University, the University of Iowa, and the University of California at Irvine, which presented him with the Distinguished Instructor Award in 1993 for his courses on dialogue and advanced fiction writing. Columbia University has established an archive for more than 1600 books published by Stein and Day, and an archive of Stein’s own manuscripts and his editorial work on the manuscripts of successful authors.
In 1999, a distinguished panel selected by the Modern Library chose two nonfiction books edited by Stein in the top half of “the 100 best nonfiction works of the century,” James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son and George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. In 2004, Stein’s memoir, Native Sons, was published, covering his friendship with Baldwin includes the correspondence that produced Notes of a Native Son, as well as their two collaborations, “Dark Runner” and the television play Equal in Paris.
Stein’s play “Napoleon” won the Dramatists Alliance Prize for “the best full-length play of 1953” and was performed both in New York and California. With Tennessee Williams, William Inge, and Robert Anderson, he was a founding member of the Playwrights Group at the Actors Studio.
In 1962, Stein founded the book publishing firm of Stein and Day and served as its President and Editor-in-Chief for over a quarter of a century. In 1985, the “Writers’ Yearbook” rated Stein and Day #3 of the top 50 U.S. publishing firms based on benefits to authors. Elia Kazan, director of five Pulitzer-prize plays and winner of three Academy Awards for directing, in his autobiography said, “My publisher Sol Stein was my producer, my editor Sol Stein was my director.” Kazan’s The Understudy is dedicated to Stein, “who saw what I didn’t think possible.” Books Stein published were on bestseller lists for nineteen consecutive years.
Patricia Day Stein
Patricia Day Stein, was a pioneering publisher and editor.
In 1958, Ms. Stein enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Columbia University, where she studied with noted historian Jacques Barzun and literary critic Lionel Trilling. It was Mr. Barzun who introduced her to another graduate student, Sol Stein. For a time, she worked with Barzun, Trilling, Mr. Stein, and the poet W.H. Auden at the Mid-Century Book Society, a book club for readers that Mr. Barzun described as promoting titles “other clubs considered to be too far above the public taste.” Among their offerings were works by E.M. Forster, Bertolt Brecht, Gunter Grass, James Baldwin, and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Ms. Stein and Mr. Stein were married in 1962 at St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University and shortly thereafter founded the publishing company Stein and Day.
Over the next quarter century, Stein and Day would publish a colorful and varied array of luminaries: director Elia Kazan; screenwriter Budd Schulberg; literary critic Leslie Fiedler; historian Reah Tannahill; thriller writer Jack Higgins; British Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath; television presenter Sir David Frost; the Shah of Iran; criminal defense attorney F. Lee Bailey; and tennis star Renee Richards.
Ms. Stein, an unheralded driving force behind the company’s many successes, introduced a number of acclaimed European works to an American audience, including Christy Brown’s autobiographical novel of life in Dublin, Down All the Days, and Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, which began with Master and Commander.
Additional Resources
Sol Stein’s Native Sons in the NY Times, “A Literary Friendship in Black and White“
Sol Stein Bibliography
Novels
- The Husband, Coward-McCann, 1969, Pocket Books, 1970. British Commonwealth: Michael Joseph, Mayflower. Translated into German, Spanish, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch.
- The Magician, Delacorte, 1971, Dell, 1972. Selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club. British Commonwealth: Michael Joseph, Mayflower. Translated into French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Russian. Film rights to Twentieth-Century Fox. Screenplay by Sol Stein.
- Living Room, Arbor House, 1974, Bantam, 1975. The Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club. British Commonwealth: The Bodley Head, New English Library. Translated into French, German (2 editions), Italian, Japanese.
- The Childkeeper, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975, Dell, 1976. British Commonwealth: Collins, Fontana. Translated into German, Spanish. German-language TV motion picture released
- Other People, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980, Dell, 1981. British Commonwealth: Collins, Fontana. French, German, Italian (3 editions), Greek.
- The Resort, Morrow, 1981, Dell, 1982. British Commonwealth: Collins, Fontana. Translated into Russian. Motion picture rights optioned (twice).
- The Touch of Treason, Marek/St. Martin’s Press, 1985, Berkley, 1986. British Commonwealth: Macmillan. Translated into German, Greek, Swedish, Norwegian.
- A Deniable Man, McGraw-Hill, April, 1989. Translated into German.
- The Best Revenge, Random House, 1991.
Nonfiction books
- A Feast for Lawyers, hardcover, M. Evans, 1989, paperback 1992. Trade paperback, Beard Books, 1999.
- Stein on Writing, St. Martin’s Press, 1995 hardback, 2000 paperback; British Commonwealth under the title Solutions for Writers, Souvenir Press. German edition, Zweitausendeins.
- How to Grow a Novel, St. Martin’s Press, 1999, British Commonwealth under the title Solutions for Novelists, Souvenir Press, 2000, in German, Zweitausendeins 2000.
- Sol Stein’s Reference Book for Writers, St. Martins Press, 2010.
- Native Sons, correspondence and commentary with James Baldwin, 2004.