Judge, and Film Fun. The liabilities of the company are estimated at $2,210,000, and its assets at $420,000. The publication of the magazines will be continued under the receivership for the present, and Leslie's Weekly will be made a monthly after the next two issues. The financial difficulties are said to be the result of the serious illness of John A. Sleicher, who organized the company in 1909, and the high cost of paper and labor. The Boston Evening Record offers $1,000 in prizes for scenarios; a first prize of $500, second prize, $250; third prize, $100; fourth prize, $100, and fifth prize $50. The prizes will be paid by the Houdini Picture Corporation, headed by Harry Houdini, the famed wizard. No "rewrites" of published stories or plays will be considered, and the prizewinning scenarios will become the absolute property of the Houdini Picture Corporation. Others submitted and given honorable mention will be the sole property of the writer and will be subject to purchase at a price to be agreed on between the writer and the producing company. Additional prizes of fifty dollars may be given if merit warrants. A stamped and addressed envelope must accompany each scenario. The Francis D. Pollak Foundation for Economic Research offers three prizes for the best essays submitted during 1921. The essays must not contain more than 10,000 words and must be on one of the following subjects (1) "The Part that Money Plays in Economic Theory "; (2) "Causes of Unemployment and Remedies "; (3) “Conditions Which Determine How Much the Consumer Gets for His Dollar." The first prize of $1,000 is open to everybody, anywhere; the second prize of $500 is open to college undergraduates in the United States; and the third prize of $500 is open to high school students. Particulars may be obtained from Dr. William T. Foster, Director of the Pollak Foundation, Newton, Mass. J. H. Nortridge, president of the North Ridge Brush Company, Freeport, Illinois, will pay fifty dollars to the college or university student who submits, in writing, the best plan to bring the company's 1921 summer vacation and part-time proposition before students. The contest, which is free, will close March 31. Details will be sent on request to any student giving his or her name in full, school and class, and home address. The editors of Telling Tales (New York) offer a prize of fifty dollars for the best lyrical poem submitted during the year 1921. There are no restrictions as to length or subject, and there is no limit to the number of poems that may be submitted by one person. Each manuscript must be typewritten, with the name and address of the author in the upper left-hand corner of the page, and must be accompanied by an addressed and stamped envelope. The contest will close November 1, 1921, so that the prize-winning poem may appear after January 1, 1922, and check will be sent in time for Christmas. The editors reserve the privilege of buying, at their regular rate, such poems as are considered worthy of publication. Payment will be made on acceptance. The "Indiana Song Contest," under the direction of Mrs. Grace Porterfield Polk, of Greenwood, Indiana, offers prizes of $100 for the best art song; $50 for the second best art song; $100 for the best ballad; and $50 for the second best ballad. The contest will close May 1, and the prizes will be awarded at the American Song Composers' Festival, to be held in the Polk Memorial Building, at Greenwood, June 1, 2, and 3. The prize of $500 offered by Oliver Morosco for the best play written by present or past students of the English 47 course at Harvard University or Radcliffe College, has been awarded to Thomas P. Robinson, for his play, The Copy." The play will be produced by David Belasco. The Tait Black Memorial prize - founded in Great Britain by the widow of James Tait Black, the publisher, to commemorate his interest in new literature - provides that £250 shall be divided each year between the authors who publish the best prose works in fiction and non-fiction. The prize is awarded by the University of Edinburgh, and for the year 1919 was divided between Henry Fest ing Jones, for his "Life of Samuel Butler," and Hugh Walpole, for his novel, "The Secret City." The fiction prize for 1920 has also been awarded to Hugh Walpole, for his novel, "The Captives." The Society of Arts and Sciences has awarded the first prize of $500 for the best short story published during 1920 to Maxwell Struthers Burt, for his story, "Each in His Own Generation," which was published in the July number of Scribner's Magazine. The second prize of $250 has been awarded to Frances Newbold Noyes, for her story, "Contact," which was published in the Pictorial Review for December. The $100 prize offered by the Matinee Musical Club of Philadelphia for the best composition by an American composer has been awarded to Henry Alexander Matthews, who is organist of one of Philadelphia's leading churches, The successful work is for organ, harp, violin, and violoncello. Only second prizes were awarded in the Hart, Schaffner, & Marx essay contest for 1920, the prize of five hundred dollars in Class A going to Frank D. Graham, assistant professor of economics at Dartmouth College, for a study on "International Trade of the United States in the Greenback Period," while the prize of two hundred do!lars in Class B was divided equally between Henry Dunster Costigan, of Harvard University, for a study on Nationalization of Collective Bargaining in the Men's Clothing Industry," and C. T. Steward, of Indiana University, for a study on the "Causes of the Recent Rise in the Price of Silver." 66 The Poetry Society of America has discontinued its prizes for work read at the monthly meetings, and therefore does not wish contributions from non-members. Mrs. Edwin Markham is now the secretary of the society. Prize offers still open : Prizes in Letters offered by the Columbia University School of Journalism: For the best American novel published this year, $1,000; for the best play performed in New York, $1,000; for the best book of the year on United States history, $1,000; for the best American biography, $1,000. Also, Prizes in Journalism, amounting to $3,500 and a $500-medal, and three traveling scholarships having a value of $1,500 each. All offered annually under the terms of the will of Joseph Pulitzer. Particulars in April WRITER. Prize of $500 offered by Dodd, Mead & Co., for a story for girls from nine to fifteen. Contest to close April 1. Particulars in November WRITER. Thomas A. Edison prize of $500 for the most meritorious research on "The Effects of Music," contest to close May 31. Manuscripts should be sent to W. V. Bingham, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Penn. Particulars in December WRITER. Prizes of $5,000, $2,500, $1,000, and $500, and twenty prizes of $250 each for the best twenty-four short stories published by the Photoplay Magazine during 1921. Particulars in August WRITER. Hart, Schaffner, & Marx prizes of $1,000, $500, $300, and $200 for the four best studies in the economic field submitted by June 21, 1921. Particulars in August WRITER. Prize of $2,000 offered by the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris for the two best essays on "Tolerance in Economics, Religion, and Politics." Particulars in February WRITER. The Rose Mary Crawshaw Prize for English Lit erature, value to £100, offered annually by the British Academy. Particulars in May WRITER. Annual Hawthornden prize of £100 offered in England for the best work of imaginative literature in English prose or poetry by an author under forty years of age that is published during the previous twelve months. American Music Optimists' prize of $500 for the best quintet (piano and strings) by an American composer. Competition will close November 1. Particulars in February WRITER. Prize of $250 for original band composition offered by Edwin Franko Goldman, contest closing April 15. Particulars in January WRITER. Berkshire Music Colony, Inc. prize of $1,000 for the best trio for piano, violin and 'cello, submitted before August 1, 1921. Particulars in September WRITER. Second Physical Culture six-months' photo prize contest - $100 for the best photograph received before May, 1921, and five dollars for the best photograph each month. Particulars in April WRITER. Two prizes, each of $200, offered by the American Historical Association the Justin Winsor prize for a monograph on American history, and the Herbert Baxter Adams prize for a monograph on the history of the Eastern Hemisphere. Particulars in April WRITER. Prize of $50 offered each month by the Touchstone (New York) for the best poem or group of poems submitted anonymously. Particulars in February WRITER. Two prizes offered by Poetry for the best work printed in the magazine in the twelve numbers end ing with that for September - $200 for a poem or group of poems by a citizen of the United States, and $100 for a poem or group of poems by any author, without limitation. Honorarium of $50 for the most meritorious piece of poetry published in the Granite Monthly during 1921. Particulars in January WRITER. Prize of $1,000 for a new air for the Yale song, "Bright College Years," offered by the Yale class of 1899. Particulars in April WRITER. Monthly prizes offered by the Photo-Era (Boston) for photographs, in an advanced competition and a beginner's competition. Weekly prizes offered by the Boston Post for original short stories by women, published each day. Particulars in May WRITER. Prizes of two dollars and one dollar offered monthly by Everygirl's Magazine, formerly Wohelo, (New York) for stories, short poems, and essays, written by Camp Fire girls. Particulars in October WRITER. WRITERS OF THE DAY. J. Corson Miller, whose poem, "Ephemerae," appeared in the Forum for February, is a resident of Buffalo, N. Y., and was educated at Canisius College in that city. Mr. Miller has written poems, occasional one-act verse dramas, and articles on literary criticism, which have been published in the Bookman, the Nation, the Forum, the Catholic World, America, the Magnificat, the Churchman, Shadowland, the Boston Transcript, and the New York Times. Mr. Miller is represented in Braithwaite's Anthologies, Frothingham's Songs of Men," the "Poet's Pack" issued by the Bookfellows of Chicago, and has been quoted in the Literary Digest and Current Opinion. His work was also included in the Red Cross Calendar of War Verse for 1918, and he has recently received favorable editorial comment in prominent newspapers of the country. His first volume, "Veils of Samite," is on the Spring list of Small, Maynard, & Company. Mr. Miller belongs to the Order of Bookfellows, and is a member of the Poetry Society of America. Madame Yukio Ozaki, who had a story, "Yei's Rosary," in the December Century, and an article, "Some Contemporary Japanese Poets," in Asia for December, is the author also of "The Japanese Fairy Book" and "Romances of Old Japan," published in this country by Brentano's, New York. Her contributions have appeared in both English and American magazines. Her father was Baron Saburo Ozaki, and her husband is the famous orator and democratic leader of Japan. Marguerite Lusk Storrs, who had a story, "The Daughter of Romley," in Harper's Magazine for January, is a Westerner, and was born in Tombstone, Arizona, where she lived for eighteen years, receiving part of her education at the University of Arizona in Tucson. With the exception of one year in New York, she has since lived in San Francisco. She has written seriously for less than four years, although she made a few attempts at short stories while in school. During the last three years she has sold three serials and a large number of short stories to various magazines. "The Daughter of Romley" sprang from an idea, the conception of a man who would give his very life to make a china that was art. The story in its first idea was the man's, but it became instead his daughter's. Miss Storrs' short story training was received from Professor Elio James of Mills College, California, and from Dr. Blanche Colton Williams, of Columbia University. BOOK REVIEWS. CINEMA CRAFTSMANSHIP. A Book for Photoplaywrights. By Frances Taylor Patterson. Illustrated. 277 pp. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & Howe. 1920. The author of "Cinema Craftsmanship" is instructor of photoplay composition in Columbia University, and with her broad knowledge of her subject and of the needs of photoplay writers she has made a valuable book. She treats of the art and science of motionpicture production in chapters headed: The Plot, The Characters, The Setting, Adaptation, Scenario Technique, Writing a Synopsis for the Photoplay Market, Cinema Comedy, The Critical Angle, and the Photoplay Market. Then she prints a whole photoplay, 'Witchcraft," continuity by Margaret Turnbull, exactly as written, and a bibliography and an index complete the book. chapter on the photoplay market does not undertake to suggest specific markets for scenarios. Miss Patterson says: "In the last analysis the photoplay market is at best an ephemeral thing, of shifting values and The transient demands," and she quotes Mr. De Mille of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation as saying: "Out of every two hundred manuscripts submitted to the Lasky Company one may contain an idea that will form the basis of a photo-drama." THE EDITORIAL. By Leon Nelson Flint. 262 pp. Cloth. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1920. This exhaustive treatise on editorial writing considers the subject in chapters headed Development of the Editorial Column, Weakness and Strength of the Editorial, The Editor and His Readers, Materials for Editorials, Editorial Purposes, Building the Editorial, The Manner of Saying It, Paragraphs and Paragraphers, Typographical Appearance, The Editorial Page, Editorial Responsibility, The Editor's Routine and Reading, and Analyzing Editorials. It discusses both the broad phases of editorial work and the technique of editorial writing, showing common faults and weaknesses, the principles of successful methods, the sources of material, the essentials of style, and the correct usage for paragraphers and columnists. It is a practical and helpful book. EDITORIALS The author of this book on editorial writing has had experience on the World's Work, the Boston American, and the Springfield Union, is the author of books on short-story writing, and was for some time Director of the course in journalism at the Massachusetts Agricultural College. The bulk of his big book, with its double-column pages, is made up of reprints of editorials from all sorts of newspapers and periodicals, selected to illustrate the principles set forth in a dozen chapters on the various kinds of editorials and the various phases of the editorial writer's work. Many of the editorials quoted are followed by comments on their structure and the development of their ideas, and following each chapter are "Exercises" for those who are studying the book. These chapters, with the editorials quoted for illustration, fill 175 pages. Part II gives 175 pages more of quoted editorials, and Part III is made up of quotations from writers on newspaper work, followed by an outline for the study of editorials and reduced fac-similes of the editorial pages of a dozen newspapers. OUR SHORT-STORY WRITERS. By Blanche Colton Williams, Ph.D. 357 Cloth. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co. 1920. Dr. Williams takes pains to say in her preface to this volume that the twenty authors to whom it is devoted are only representative of our short-story writers, and that the seventeen living writers were chosen on three counts: significance of work in time, theme, or other respects; weight or actual pp. ог value of work; and quantity of work, measured by the number of stories or story volumes. Of those not living, it seemed that Jack London, O. Henry, and Richard Harding Davis should not be omitted. With this explanation, Dr. Williams gives critical and biographical sketches of Alice Brown, James Branch Cabell, Dorothy Canfield, Robert W. Chambers, Irvin S. Cobb, James B. Connolly, Richard Harding Davis, Margaret Deland, Edna Ferber, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Hamlin Garland, O. Henry, Joseph Hergesheimer, Fannie Hurst, Jack London, Brander Matthews, Melville Davisson Post, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Booth Tarkington, and Edith Wharton. THE LITERARY YEAR-BOOK -1921. Edited by Mark Meredith. 608 Flexible pp. cloth. London: George Routledge & Sons; New York: E. P. Dutton & Company. 1921. Prepared primarily for English writers, this "Literary Year-Book" has much to make it valuable to writers in the United States. Its main feature is a Directory, with brief biographies of British and Colonial writers together with a few American authors publishing in England, which fills 300 pages of the book. This is followed by a list of pseudonyms and a similar directory of artists and illustrators, with an eight-page list showing who's who in Fleet street. The last two hundred pages of the book are devoted to matter helpful to writers, including a classified list of British periodicals, an alphabetical list of Canadian, Indian, and American periodicals, an alphabetical list of British publishers with a classified list showing their requirements, and alphabetical lists of the principal Colonial and American publishers, with lists of British booksellers, libraries, literary sccieties, and the London clubs. Besides, there are various articles useful to writers, including an extended treatise on 'Law and Letters," discussing questions of copyrights, literary property, publishers' contracts, and literary agents, giving business advice that authors need. THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1920. The Yearbook of the American Short Story. Edited by Edward J. O'Brien. 500 pp. Cloth. Boston: Small, May. nard, & Co. 1921. This sixth annual volume giving the best American short stories of the preceding year is, like its predecessors, of great interest and value to writers. In common with all readers they will like to read the twenty stories that Mr. O'Brien has selected as the best published in more than seventy American periodicals, and for them as writers the book contains besides biographical and bibliographical material of special value. The Yearbook of the American Story, which occupies the last 125 pages of the volume, gives the addresses of more than fifty American magazines publishing short stories, a bibliographical roll of honor of American short stories, a roll of honor of foreign short stories in American magazines, a critical summary of the best books of short stories of 1920, a list of volumes of short stories published in the year in the United States, England, and Ireland, an index of articles on the short story, an index of short stories in books, magazine averages, and an index of the short stories published in the magazines. Every short-story writer will be interested in the book. ANTHOLOGY OF MAGAZINE VERSE FOR 1920. The pp. Here is the new volume in the series of Mr. Braithwaite's annual reviews of American poetry, with an Anthology including some 125 of the best poems of the year, selected from the work of sixty or seventy American poets. The poems are interesting both for their own sake and as illustrations of modern tendencies in verse-writing, and the volume includes besides a Yearbook of American Poetry for 1920, with interesting material that is collected nowhere else. It includes an index of poets and of poems published in American magazines; a list of articles and reviews of poetry published during 1919-1920; a list of volumes of poems published during the year; a select list of books about poets and poetry; and an index of first lines of poems in the volume. An introduction treating of poetic inspiration and influence comprehensively expresses the character and quality of the poetic art in America today. 241 The THE POETS OF THE FUTURE. A College Anthology Schnittkind. for 1918-1920. Edited by Henry P. Ph.D. Stratford Cloth. Boston: pp. Company. 1920. This fourth volume of the annual college anthologies is interesting as promise rather than fulfilment, and suggests that if poets are born, they are also made, to a considerable extent, by the experiences of life. It is interesting to note the subjects of the verses in the book, largely descriptive of impressions of nature and the more obvious phases of life, with hardly any as is natural illustrating human experience, and only a few - which seems odd even about love. - SOUTH SEA FOAM. By A. Safroni-Middleton. 350 pp. Cloth. New York: George H. Doran Company. 1920. The romance of vagabond life in the South Sea Islands is presented picturesquely to the reader in this unusual travel book, giving the reminiscences of "a modern Don Quixote in the Southern Seas," who, following the ardent, adventurous spirit of youth, lived among the natives of the Polynesian islands. His descriptions of the primitive people and their lives, of lovely girls decked with flowers that enhance their charms, of the witchery of moonlight nights and the adventures of enterprising lovers who undertake to carry off fascinating maidens, are full of color, and will stir the fancy and hold the attention of the reader. The author's tales illustrating the quaint mythology of the islanders also are full of interest, in many cases striking examples of the poetry of primitive ideas. Altogether the book is a fascinating one, presenting a most attractive series of pictures of the romantic life of the South Seas. BOOKS RECEIVED: [THE WRITER is pleased to receive for review any books about authors, authorship, language, or lit erary topics or any books that would be of real value in a writer's library, such as works of reference, history, biography, ог travel. There is no space in the magazine for the review of fiction, poetry, etc. All books received will be acknowledged under this heading. Selections will be made for review in the interest of THE WRITER'S readers.] THE WRITERS' AND ARTISTS' YEARBOOK Edited by G. E. Mitton. 201 pp. Cloth. London: A. & C. Black; New York: The Macmillan Company. 1921. AMERICAN RED CROSS WORK AMONG THE FRENCH THE DRIVE OF SAINT MIHIEL. Poem, by Harold P. LITERARY ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS. [ Readers who send to the publishers of the periodicals indexed for copies of the periodicals containing the articles mentioned in the following reference list will confer a favor if they will mention THE WRITER.] SOME MARTINIQUE LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN. With introductory note by Elizabeth Bisland. Harper's Magazine for March. A VISIT TO JOHN BURROUGHS. Sadakichi Hartman. Century for March. — II. AMERICAN LITERATURE: NOW AND TO BE. St. John Ervine. Century for March. FROM "THE BOOK OF JACK LONDON." Charmian London. Century for March. JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD AND HIS FAR NORTH. Ray Long. Bookman for February. THE CHARM OF LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY. Jessie B. Rittenhouse. Bookman for February. THE WICKEDNESS OF Books. man for February. WHY IS A PRINT. Frank man for February. Elinor Wylie. Book Weitenkampf. Book DISCIPLINING O. HENRY. William Johnston. The Sketch Book, in the Bookman for February. AT HOME WITH H. G. WELLS. John Elliot. The Sketch Book, in Bookman for February. |