Student Gets Extra Credit for Staying After Class : A woman in a writing workshop at Orange Coast College sells her first novel before the class is over.

COSTA MESA —  When Jo-Ann Mapson asked the students in her Orange Coast College writing workshop to turn in the first chapters of their novels in September she wasn’t expecting to find writing that was so good that a student’s novel would sell even before the 18-week class had ended.

But that’s what happened after Mapson read the first chapter of a novel by Earlene Fowler of Fountain Valley.

“It was so fresh and funny, and so well written that I was taken aback,” says Mapson, herself a novelist and award-winning short story writer. “I was just absolutely stopped in my tracks by how good it was, how polished, how professional.”

Mapson, who was hired as the sabbatical replacement for long-time OCC writing instructor Raymond Obstfeld, called Fowler over one night after class to ask her how far along she was in the book.

“It was a little daunting,” admits Mapson, careful not to “sound too impressed in case she had completed only this one chapter and my praise might paralyze her.”

It turned out that Fowler already had finished a first draft of her novel and was rewriting it.

Mapson says reading the entire book--a mystery set in the ranching/college/artists’ community of “San Celina” (San Luis Obispo)--completely “charmed” her and that she made only a few minor rewriting suggestions. She also called her literary agent in New York to let her know she had a writer she thought the agent would be interested in representing.

The upshot is the kind of inspiring story that undoubtedly will be retold to OCC writing students for years to come.

As Mapson tells it, her agent, Deborah Schneider, read Fowler’s manuscript on the train home in late November, loved it and had it sent by messenger to G.P. Putnam’s Sons that same night. Within a week Putnam’s had not only bought the novel but signed Fowler for two sequels in both hardcover and softcover.

“Drunkard’s Path,” the lead title in Putnam/Berkeley’s new mystery line, is due out next fall.

“It’s amazing,” Mapson says. “I think it probably breaks all the speed records for an unknown.”

Not surprisingly, news of Fowler’s sale created a stir in the writing workshop.

“I had to give a little lecture ahead of time on how competitive spirit is a good thing, but don’t let it alienate you from your neighbor’s success,” says Mapson, adding that seeing a fellow student sell a novel so quickly, “is tough, and it makes me feel for everyone who’s trying hard.”

Mapson, who says she believes at least three of her students will “definitely” go on to have their own novels published, concedes that “a lot of it is luck, too--placing the book at the right time and to the right person. My agent knows all those people and knew Putnam was starting a new (mystery) line and felt Earlene’s book would fit right in with that.”

And what does first-time novelist Fowler think of her good fortune?

“My head is still spinning,” she says.

Fowler, 38, works as a substitute in the children’s department at the Huntington Beach Library. She often goes for weeks without working, she says, “so it doesn’t interfere with my writing at all.”

“Drunkard’s Path” is the first novel Fowler ever attempted. She says she wrote short stories for 10 years--”mailed them out and got them back. Finally, in January, I decided I’ve always loved mystery novels, I’ll try writing one. And I did.”

Fowler says she wrote only one chapter of her novel in Obstfeld’s novel workshop last spring, then worked on it over the summer and finished it in Mapson’s workshop, which ends this week.

Fowler, who is also a member of the Camp Pine Writer’s Group--”The guy whose house we meet is on Pine Street” in Huntington Beach--doesn’t plan to let a book sale keep her from taking more writing workshops.

“I love taking classes,” she says. “I’ll go anywhere to listen to somebody talk about writing.”

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Did you know that Bugs Bunny got his name, in part, from West Coast mobster Bugsy Siegel?

Or that Betty Boop was modeled after a French poodle and, in her screen debut, actually had long, floppy ears?

Or that an entire seasons of “The Flintstones” had to be taped from the hospital room of Mel Blanc (the voice of Barney Rubble) while he recovered from a near-fatal car accident?

These are just some of the facts revealed in Jeff Lenburg’s new book, “The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons” (Facts on File Publishers; $19.95).

Lenburg, an Anaheim native and Cal State Fullerton journalism graduate whose previous books include “The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoon Series” and “The Great Cartoon Directors,” says the illustrated book fully documents the histories of every cartoon ever made--more than 1,000 cartoon productions and 300 cartoon characters, from Gertie the Dinosaur to Bart Simpson.

For baby boomers, Lenburg offers this good news: The Fox Network is planning to produce a new version of Jay Ward’s “Crusader Rabbit.”

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Richard Nehrbass’s Tinsel Town detective Vic Eaton, who debuted last year in “A Perfect Death for Hollywood,” is back.

In “Dark of Night” (HarperCollins; $20) an independent film producer hires the cagey and wisecracking Eaton to find his runaway mentally impaired daughter, who has also taken material crucial to her father’s latest film. Just as Eaton agrees to take the case, however, the producer turns up dead.

The Huntington Beach author, who teaches management courses at Cal State Dominguez Hills, already has completed his third Vic Eaton outing and is at work on his fourth novel--a thriller.