approaching when he should be able to tell every damned editor in the United States where to go oh, yes, he told us where to go beyond the possibility of a misunderstand ing.

But, seriously speaking, why abuse editors? Obviously we editors could not exist without authors. Obviously it is to our advantage to find new authors if we can. All the great names were unknown once. Indeed, great names do not count as much as is usually supposed. I have in mind several instances of stories by authors of international reputation which were rejected recently by

well, let us say again by the United States Magazine because they were not up to the usual standard of the authors in question. After all, successful authorship is a matter of continuously making good.

Here arises the question of literature. Personally, I think that a first-class magazine chooses the nearest thing to literature that it can get. I believe that there is somewhere a place for every good manuscript. Other editors hold the view that editors are not literary critics at all, but only very highly specialized judges of the popular taste. But who shall decide? What is literature? And what is not? It is largely a matter of per

sonal opinion. There is very little literature, anyway. There are no hard and fast rules by which it may be known. Failing this, the public gets what it demands stories, often,

in which it sees itself. Most of the magazine clientele is young, so it likes to read about the young. Most of it is trying to succeed, so it likes to read about success. If editors can combine this with literature, or nearliterature, well and good. Failing this, we editors give them one or the other, as we can.

And, in closing, let me repeat that editors do like authors. Send us all of your work you can; and, if you send to me personally, don't mix your 'wills' and 'shalls,' don't say 'like' for 'as,' don't say 'miss' for 'girl,' and don't spell every man's name that you possibly can with an 'ie.' Editors are only human, after all, and some of them have fads. And when you get Form A (the one that asks you to send more of your work yes, I used to think that it was a real letter, too) don't send old stuff that you have n't been able to sell. It will only lower the opinion in which you are beginning to be held in the office. Wait until you have something really good. And so good luck! NEW YORK, N. Y.

A Magazine Editor.

We are told to use short words because readers will not understand the long ones so well. Why insult the reader? Why not give him credit for as much intelligence as we have? If a writer wishes to produce an artistic work of fiction, an intelligent essay, or a convincing editorial, is it conducive to the good of his prospective product to selfhypnotize himself into the state of mind of a person about to write a reader for a primary class? We are told that short words are strong words, and that simplicity is greatness. I grant this to a certain extent, but I do not think the converse of the statement holds true. If it did we should be compelled to eliminate Shakspere and Stevenson and

Milton and Poe and Irving

just a few chosen at random from our list of literary artists. To bar the long words would be as much of a mistake as to use nothing else.

We are told to avoid classical words and use Anglo-Saxon ones. Is it wise, then, to discard a good classical word, for an indifferent Anglo-Saxon one? My own two years of enforced high-school Latin are practically useless to me now; I never had the desire to study Greek; and all I know about Old English is that it is Mr. Dooley's opinion that Chaucer was a poor speller! My knowledge as to what words are classical and what are not extends to a very few prefixes and suffixes. Are my literary ambi

The third commandment of the Dictionary-Gods forbids us to use slang. Sometimes the criticism of slang is intelligent often it is like the fond parent in Walt Mason's poem, The Purist," who admonished his son "Using slang is just a habit, just a cheap and dopey trick, if you hump yourself and try to, you can shake it pretty quick." This is only a slight exaggeration of what many "purists" say. They tell us to cut it out! The same scholars who insist that common words are great words are continually denouncing slang because it is common. For my part, if I can get more pep

into a sentence that needs pep by the use of a bit of slang I use the slang.

My words may seem radical. I do not think they really are. Though they may savor of treason against the "King's English," they are not meant to be entirely lawless. Rather they are meant to rule out the old law and introduce a new. They are not Bolshevistic merely democratic. We have heard much, in the last three years, of many kinds of democracies. Why not have a democracy of words, where each word must support itself, without leaning upon a family tree. Why not choose each word on its own merits, without regard to class, color, or previous condition of servitude? DES MOINES, Iowa.

Lloyd McFarling.

In the rôle of a wooer of the poetic muse, I have read and re-read the "Argonautica," the "Iliad," the "Odyssey," the "Eneid," "Paradise Lost," the "Divine Comedy," the dramas of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. I have learned of the moderns from Browning to Noyes, from Longfellow to van Dyke. I have familiarized myself with Braithwaite's "Anthologies of Magazine Verse." I have sought to know fables and legends, sagas and ballads, Vers Libre, Vers de Société, War Verse, Peace Verse, and ali the rest. I have studied text-books galore on rhetoric and versification. Permeated with this knowledge, I have woven verse with nicest art as much as lieth in me. I have tremulously consigned samples of my skill to the tender mercies of some of the smaller magazines. Back they come, after a longer or shorter period, and in various stages of preservation. What the dickens is the matter with them, anyway?" I question, after careful perusal of each rejection slip.

I found my answer this summer. The Atlantic Monthly has revealed the secret of acceptable poetic expression. Its method of procedure reminds one of the little girl who, hearing her elders say that "a secret must be kept inviolate," wrote her secret on a slip

of paper and hid it in a bed of violets. This secret is infolded in a short story, and it is surrounded with the aroma of a summerreading number.

The story tells of a successful business man, presumably more than forty years of age, who has had no time for literature or nature or art since he left his bookish youth behind him, to become engrossed in business. For years he has not given a thought to the books that he used to love. One day, on a week-end, the first faint glimpse of the sea, caught as he is being bowled in his car alongside the marshes, recalls Xenophon and his ten thousand Greeks. He hears again their shout at the sight of the sea, and wonder of wonders! a poem comes to him all unsought! It flutters across his mind as suddenly and as quietly as the salt air from the sea sweeps across his face. He orders his chauffeur to stop the car and he captures his prize with fountain-pen and pocket memorandum book. It is a complete poem almost. One stanza is lacking. This comes later, by the sweat of his brow. In confident innocence, he sends his windfall to a leading magazine. Just a week later he receives a wedding-invitation-style of acceptance letter heavy, cream-white, publisher's name en

graved. It contains an appreciation of his poetic power, an expression of pleasure in accepting his poem, and, best of all, "a check for thirty bucks."

"Shades of all the poets of all the ages!" I exclaimed as I read, "my eye in a fine frenzy rolling." Have I spent my time and strength for naught? Is the thing such a mystery, after all? Something that comes you know not how like the "flu," and grips you and that is how you know you like the flu" again? Must I with

have it

patience still wait for it and the "thirty bucks," likewise? What good times I might have had while waiting for the train of thought! What fortunes I might have won and lost in Wall Street. Classics, anthologies, and text-books, I abjure you! All hail, Atlantic, I swear by you forever! Henceforth, I attend strictly to business. My sub-conscious mind must evolve the "Vision Splendid" when and where it will. I am waiting, calmly waiting for the fire the check for thirty bucks." LOWELL, Mass.

and

L. A. Wallingford.

I doubt if writers generally realize the extent of the trade-journal writer's field. I estimate that of the thousands of trade and class journals in the United States and Canada there are perhaps fifteen hundred that buy ma nuscripts, spending for contributions from a few dollars a year to a good many thousands of dollars in some cases. Many of these journals are published weekly and pay for general news as well as for special articles adapted to their needs. In Ayer's "American Newspaper Directory" there are trade journals listed under more than three hundred classifications, ranging from Accounts and Advertising to Writers Yachting.

and

So far as remuneration is concerned, the trade-journal rate of payment is high enough so that a writer may net an income of at least a hundred dollars a week. The average trade journal pays half a cent a word for articles, and various rates for photographs, generally a dollar and a half or two dollars apiece; but there are many trade journals which pay a higher rate. If a trade-journal writer does his work well he can build a reputation which in time will bring him enough requests from editors to keep his time fully occupied. I myself at this writing have on hand enough definite orders for special articles to keep me busy for three or four months. There are at least half a

dozen trade magazines for which I write regularly that pay me a cent a word; three others pay me as much as three cents a word; and at least ten others average about three-fourths of a cent a word. For photographs I am paid in some cases as much as five dollars apiece.

Experience for several years as a newspaper reporter and long experience in tradejournal writing enables me to turn out at least six thousand words of copy a day, when I drive myself; but I do not attempt to average more than five thousand words a day. This makes my production about twenty-five thousand words a week, for I always spend at least one full day in gathering material. Each week I send out from fifteen to twenty photographs, and I have now reached the point where about eighty-five per cent. of this product finds its way into print. My rule is to write each article for some special publication. Those that come back have to be rewritten before they are sent to any other journal.

A writer planning to enter the trade-journal field should obtain copies of as many trade journals as possible and study their contents with great care. Thus he can get an idea of the specific requirements of each publication, and if he can meet these requirements he is certain of success.

THE WRITER is published the first of every month. It will be sent, postpaid, for $1.50 a year. The price of Canadian and foreign subscriptions is $1.62, including postage.

All drafts and money orders should be made payable to the Writer Publishing Co. If local checks are sent, ten cents should be added for collection charges.

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The American News Company, of New York, and the New England News Company, of Boston, and their branches are wholesale agents for THE WRITER. It may be ordered from any newsdealer, or direct from the publishers.

The rate for advertising in THE WRITER is two dollars an inch for each insertion, with no discount for either time or space; remittance required with the order. Advertising is accepted only for two Cover pages. For special position, if available, twenty per cent. advance is charged. No advertisement of less than one-half inch will be accepted.

* Contributions not used will be returned, if a stamped and addressed envelope is enclosed.

The publication office of THE WRITER is Room 52-A, 244 Washington street, but all communications should be addressed:

THE WRITER PUBLISHING CO.,
P. O. Box, 1905, Boston, 6, Mass.

and inspiring lesson in patriotism, urges young writers to keep on with their work, and never to think that the stories they send to magazines are not read. This is a great mistake, she declares, for the publishers are just as eager to find new authors as the writers are to see their products in print. Taking for granted that one has talent, Miss Montague believes one of the greatest assets that a writer can have is an intense interest in humanity and the power to enter into the viewpoint of the other person. "Learn to see things with the eyes of those about you," she concludes, "and get away from selfconsciousness. People are so fine and life is so interesting that there is always something new and worth finding."

Edward W. Bok, in his recently published "Autobiography," also assures authors that all submitted manuscripts are read carefully; and yet, why should authors be so insistent that the manuscripts they submit to editors shall all be read? They are offering the manuscripts for sale, and if the editor to whom they are submitted can see at once that he does not want to buy them, why should he read them? It is the old question over again, but the editor's real business is to buy the stories that he desires to publish, and an examination to determine that point is all that is necessary, and all that authors have any right to ask.

A good rule for business correspondence is to write a separate letter for each of several unrelated subjects instead of one letter taking them up one after another, so that the letter referring to any special subject may be referred at once to the man or the department immediately concerned, for prompt attention. If a letter to the editor of a large magazine, for instance, has a paragraph about a manuscript, and a paragraph about a subscription order, and a paragraph about an advertisement to be printed, the letter must go to three different persons, one after another, and the result is delay and possible inattention to some of the matter in question. Similarly, in making notes and memoranda, writers will do well not to bunch

them in any way, but to make each note separate, so that it may be handled without reference to any other matter. For notetaking purposes a loose-leaf notebook, or even a bunch of slips or a memorandum pad, is better than an ordinary notebook. Notes so made on separate slips can be handled or filed independently, or combined with other notes on the same subjects, with no trouble whatever, whereas, if a number of notes on different subjects are made on the same sheet of paper or an ordinary notebook page, they cannot be used conveniently, and there is always danger that a note may be overlooked, or hard to find when it is wanted.

In the January number of THE WRITER a paragraph was printed regarding manuscript needs of the Universal Lyceum and Booking Bureau of Kansas City. In response to an inquiry regarding material sent by a WRITER subscriber and not heard from, Dr. Belle S. Director Mooney, the of the Agency, writes:

The item published in THE WRITER brought us an avalanche of contributions. Some confusion resulted from the mistake made in printing "Book Agency" instead of "Booking Agency." Ours is not a publishing office, and we do not handle books in any way.

It is the policy of this office to read all copy submitted as soon as possible and return at once all that is unacceptable. Sketches that have sufficient merit for production are submitted to request our producers with for opinion, and estimate as to the time required for production. We find that the writer you speak of submitted excellent material, which has been recommended for production, and there is a notation in our file that we sent him a card to that effect, which seems to have been lost in the mail. We will write to him again.

We should like to say in THE WRITER that we have had much unsigned material sent to us. We have now a generous collection of manuscripts without the slightest indication of authorship, which we should be glad to return to the writers if they had not so modestly concealed their identity. We make every effort to read and report promptly and to return to writers alt copy received with return address.