Editor, the Forum:

At a meeting of the Poetry Society, Dr. Henry Seidel Canby of the Saturday Review of Literature made the statement, which he offered to prove by a questionnaire, that a short-story writer could make from $5,000 to $20,000 a year and be practically unknown as a literary figure - that is, unknown to editors of literary pages and to people who make literary comment a part of their polite conversation. On the other hand a poet can publish ten poems a year and be mentioned in lectures as a promising figure.

Dr. Canby did not deplore the the short-story writer's lack of recognition, as he believed most of them did not deserve literary prestige. But he questioned if the poet's reputation was not too easily won? He remarked that it depended upon pleasing several well-established poets, and that pleasing twenty other poets is an easier job than pleasing fifty-thousand general readers.

A similar situation exists between the commercial and creative painters. One of the latter commented on Dr. Canby's statement by saying: "The point is that the poet does n't write to please twenty other poets. He writes to please himself. If twenty poets recognize him, that is his good luck. Perhaps he gets their recognition just because he has worked for himself, not for them. The commercial artists are always harping on the same subject. They accuse us of a conspiracy because when one of them does do an artistic pic

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ture it does n't make a stir. They don't see why. They know commercial work is good practice in craftsmanship, and the commercial artist's "artistic" picture looks to them just as good as the one by the fellow who has been pegging away at creative art for years. At the same time the commercial artist admits he just did the picture on the side. Well, the picture may be as good, in a way. The trouble is that it is too much like something else. The commercial artist has n't worked out anything of his own in the uncommercial field, he merely uses what other people have worked out. Naturally the prestige goes to those who have worked it out.

"The creative artist does n't expect to make a living by his art. He knows that people are paid for doing what other people want them to do, not for what they want to do themselves. He may make a living by his art, late in life, but that is a gamble. He can't know with certainty that his work will be sufficiently important artistically to have a commercial value for that reason alone, nor whether recognition, if deserved, will come during his life-time. He has to work out some other way to keep himself going.

"Wanting a certain and excellent livelihood and literary or artistic fame, is wanting your cake and eating it, too. Either is good social ethics -- but they don't go together."

New York City.

The established writer tells us that we must write prolifically if we would hope to succeed. In spite of this very sound advice, the beginning writer has a tendency to write a manuscript, then wait to see what happens. The dread of the rejection slip is ever present and overpowering. How to overcome this dread?

I believe I have found the answer. At any rate, I have found a way that helps me. I formerly thought I was doing well if I had three articles or stories touring the country simultaneously. Then, I suddenly saw it as a game. Why not see how many manuscripts I could have in the mails at the same time?

Margery Swett Mansfield.

It was when I began to look at it in this light that my production jumped. I'm still a would-bewriter, but I feel that I am making longer strides in the right direction. I write a great deal more, and I have lost my dread of rejection slips. To me they are now merely all in the day's work. Why should I dread a rejection slip? My objective is to get a large number of manuscripts in the mail at the same time. It is the acceptance that baffles me in that attempt. Every article or story sold knocks one point from my record.

The steady writing is helping me to improve. Every time I drop a manuscript in the mail box I am that much closer to being a professional. Some day I will be one. In the meantime I no

longer dread rejections. A rejection keeps the manuscript on the road that much longer and swells the number that are in the mail at one time. I'm having a heap of fun in this race with myself.

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It has changed my entire outlook. Maybe some other struggling, discouraged beginner will find new life by trying the game. DeLand, Fla. Francis H. Bent, Jr.

Perhaps some writers have wondered if it would not be a saving of labor and money to themselves and the time and patience of editors if synopses could be submitted as an initial approach, rather than the full-length manuscript.

From a source which seemed authentic, I heard that the best method was to submit a synopsis and excerpts of the story to be considered. Twice my effort was returned with "Thanks" - then the editor of Little, Brown & Company was kind enough to advise "that we are not in the habit of gauging any manuscript on such a small amount of material."

My informant must have been wrong. To make sure, I submitted inquiries to fifty leading publishers, requesting an indication of their preference. This was the form typed for reply on post cards:

We prefer writers to submit, initially,

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Complete manuscript.............
Synopsis of story

Excerpts from story.
Synopsis and excerpts.
Letter stating

character of story...... Remarks,

The replies were largely in favor of complete manuscripts only. Some asked for accompanying letter also, but only Houghton Mifflin Company expressed a preference for a synopsis and excerpts, J. B. Lippincott Company stated their fiction needs were limited and for that reason they preferred authors to submit synopsis or letter stating character of story.

It seems a pity there is not some shorter, easier way of approaching publishers but, after all, we know their methods are the fairest to all roncerned. Chicago, Ill.

Mr. Harvey Wickham, in the October WRITER says that "a writer who has never been anything else is in a hard case." Sir Alfred Mond some time ago referred to the "inevitable untruthfulness of mere writers," and Tolstoy held that a man, to make any comment about life, should work with his hands every day. It would seem that the Greek writers whose names have come down to us were unlike some artistic and critical moderns, for instead of being mere men of letters, they led the lives of active men of affairs. Like Goethe, Scott, Milton and Byron, they moved in the affairs of the world. I have read that "Sophocles and Thueydides commanded fleets, Aeschylus fought at Marathon, Socrates served in the army and pre

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Rena Oldfield Pettersen.

sided in the Ecclesia, Herodotus was a great traveller, the comic poet Eupolis was killed in a sea fight, Protagoras drew up the constitution for the great Panhellenic colony of Pericles at Thutii, and the most famous sophists served as ambassadors and diplomats."

It should be self-evident that we can only write about the life we know, and living comes before writing. Intense interest in the world as we know it pays cash dividends in the case of the writer, and enables his writing to carry conviction. All life may be an open book to the man who can interpret it, but even he must look long and earnestly to really understand. Let us seek to know our material, lest we become "mere writers." Cumberland, England. J. E. Williamson.

A negro was once discussing prayer with his pastor. "Doctah, Ah has decided that thar's two kinds of prayer," he announced. "You all been preachin' about prayer that is theory prayer. Ah prayed and Ah prayed, 'Dear Lawd, send me some chicken,' but no chicken come. So once Ah prayed, 'Dear Lawd, send me to the chicken,' and Ah got chicken. That is practical prayer, Doctah. From now hence Ah believes in practical prayer only.'

The lesson here for the free lance writer is that

he must believe in practical prayer. He must pray, "Dear Lord, send me to the material," not "Dear Lord, send the material to me."

Although all is fish that comes to the free lancer's net, it is necessary for him to go where the fish are to set his net. He must put himself in the way of ideas. It is futile for the writer of this kind of material to wait for an inspiration before attacking something. He must spend much of his time in looking for material, ever aware that it will not come to him by mere suggestions or request.

While the free lance should strive for deep water fishing, he should not despise the small fry. Many magazines prefer the short feature; many are hunting good fillers. Even the straight expository article is shorter than formerly.

The experience article is the most popular type of material at present. Magazines prefer five hundred words on how Jim Jones does a certain thing than a thousand on how Jim Jones should do things. An editor wrote me recently that his readers were not interested in why people fail; they wanted to know how people succeed. That is a good hint.

There are two things quite pertinent to writing of any kind. First, one must learn to observe. By this I do not mean the seeing of things that the ordinary person with one eye might see, but the seeing of things that the ordinary person does not see. It does not stop there. It means also the ability to see the uncongruities. To see things in their unusual relationships.

The second thing is visualization. Probably a better word for what I mean is what the poet would call personalization: being able to see things

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from another person's point of view. Visualize yourself as doing a certain thing. Just what would be your reactions? Answer that and then write them as real happenings. Use imaginary happenings, things that might have happened or should have happened.

After a period of time a writer accumulates experiences, just as a lecturer does. Lecturers frequently fill their lectures with what happened in another town. The writer should keep track of his experiences, such as the letters he receives after an article of his has been published.

The writer who expects to make his living from free lance or feature writing must first of all learn how to get material. While all should be fish that comes to his net, nevertheless, he will have to read, to do research, talk, write letters of inquiry, and think. The writer must learn to put himself in the way of ideas. It will be necessary to develop a keen sense of observation. He must be with people; study them, and use them. Life is a never-ending source of material, and for the free lance writer, it is always the best source. Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. J. T. Bristowe.

Reading an entertaining article in THE WRITER, on the influence of advertising, I came in the last paragraph to the words "panaceas for all the ills that flesh is heir to," and thereby raised a ghost. For, once upon a time, a seventeen-year-old college Freshman used that same expression, and when, with fear and trembling, she went to conference with her rhetoric teacher, a perfectly harmless man grown gray trying to teach his heedless pupils to say what they meant, he pounced upon that phrase, and explained with devastating exactitude that pan meant all, and that a panacea was a remedy for everything, and therefore she had committed the sin of redundancy!

She has never since made that particular error, and she has furthermore learned to go to the dictionary when she has any doubt as to the exact meaning or limitation of a word she wants to use. "Quite" is a word that another school-teacher insisted must be used correctly or not at all. When it was misused, as it frequently was, she would substitute "entirely" in the sentence that had just been given, with somewhat ludicrous results. Indeed, to this day, I find myself mentally replacing "quite" with "entirely" and I am quite sure that

anyone who adopts this method will not say "quite" when he means something else.

This same teacher required as a means of increasing our vocabularies that we learn five new words each week, and use each one three times. I am sorry I have not kept up the habit; for the addition of 260 words annually gives to anyone who wishes to write, or to speak for that matter, just that much more word-power, with the naturally increasing ability to make himself understood.

When we consider the groups of words we have acquired with surprising swiftness, such as the military terms used during the war, the political terms during campaigns, all the terms relating to radio; when we stop to consider how recently electricity and the automobile have become a part of everyday life, each of necessity bringing its own vocabulary into general use, we should not find the conscious acquisition of five new words a week, a very great undertaking.

I hereby offer the suggestion, and recommend the daily paper as the most convenient place to find them.

Blue Springs, Mo.

Hildegarde Walls Johnson.

THE AMERICAN CARAVAN 115 East Twenty-third street, New York, is a yearbook of American literature, edited by Van Wyck Brooks, Alfred Kreymborg, Lewis Mumford, and Paul Rosenfeld, and published by the Macaulay Company. For the 1928 edition the editors wish to secure the best that is being done today in short novels, short stories, poetry, essays, plays, dialogues, and in representative fragments of longer works. Nothing is too serious and nothing too light to come within the province of the book. The editors are as ready to print a novel of 45,000 words as an epigram of two lines, and they can handle anything that falls between. The America of Whitman

and the America of Poe, the America of William James and the America of George Santayana, the America of Carl Sandburg and the America of T. S. Eliot, the America of Mrs. Wharton's drawing rooms and the America of the sweatshop, steel works, and tenant farmers - all are welcome. The American Caravan for 1928 asks first publication rights covering the six months after publication date. Royalties will be divided on the pro-rata basis; short poems will be paid for at a special rate. Manuscripts may be submitted until March 15, and final acceptance of all manuscripts will be made by the first of April.

LONGMANS, GREEN, & Co.-55 Fifth avenue, New York, are interested in educational manuscripts of all standard types, and in the way of general publishing are particularly concerned to get manuscripts in the fields of biography, fiction, history, sociology, and popular science. The firm is also interested in children's books.

MODERN HOMEMAKING-Augusta, Maine, at the present time is in the market for wholesome stories for general family reading. Stories may contain from 3,000 to 6,000 words but they must be interest

ing, and, above all, readable. The readableness of a story is the main test. BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS-Des Moines, Iowa, is now edited by Elmer T. Peterson, who is in the market for informative matter that tells how various tasks around the garden and the home have been done, and non-technical articles which are informative and inspiring to amateur gardeners, as well as experience stories that bring out new ideas of construction, planning, landscaping, and the like. Fiction and poetry are not wanted. Better Homes and Gardens is intended for home folks in city, town, and suburb, and its central thought is that the home is the soul of the family existence and that beautiful gardens constitute the frame.

THE CHICAGO DAILY NEWS -15 North Wells street, Chicago, Ill., buys in the open market, as needed, sentimental fiction, of about 1,000 words; bright fictional sketches of woman interest, not exceeding 800 words; and jokes, light verse, etc., suitable to the humor department of the Glee Club. The Daily News does. not buy serious verse or melodramatic fiction.

THE AMERICAN BOY-550 Lafayette boulevard, Detroit, Michigan, is most interested just at present in short fiction stories, containing about 5,000 words. In addition, the editors want serials, of about 40,000 words, that will break conveniently into four instalments, and also a wide variety of non-fiction.

THE BLACK MASK-45 West Forty-fifth street, New York, is constantly looking for new writers who show promise, and a sympathy and willingness to conform to the magazine's aims. Mr. Shaw, the

editor, says the purpose of the magazine is very definite, and, therefore, easy to be understood. The main theme is detective fiction, with occasional Western, Border, and adventure stories. for variety. He wants plot, philosophy, characterization, and moral interpreted through action, with swift movement from the start and throughout the story, and he stresses plausibility in all details.

plot, scene, characters, and action. The old formula type of detective story, where a gruesome murder is first committed, and the rest of the tale is occupied with its solution by some clever investigator, should be avoided, as well as the horrible, the unreal, the supernatural, and the improbable. Just at present, the chief need of the Black Mask is for short stories, containing from 3,000 to 6,000 words.

YOUNG PEOPLE-1701 Chestnut street, Philadelphia, Penn., is in the market for good boys' stories, not exceeding 3,000 words.

JUDGE 627 West Forty-third street, New York, is in the market for short jokes, epigrams, short verses, paragraphs, and humorous articles, or stories, not exceeding 300 words—the shorter, the better. Judge is also in the market for cartoons and humorous ideas, and for humorous drawings of all kinds and in any medium, although those in pen and ink are preferred. Drawings should always be mailed flat, and be accompanied by return postage.

FILM FUN-97 Fifth avenue, New York, will be published twice a month after the January issue. The magazine will not issue conventional special numbers, but it does want seasonal material. Text material, as usual, should be of slapstick variety rather than sophisticated, and the major share of jokes and quips will be general, the chief prerequisite being a collegiate snap and raciness. The magazine's biggest need is for jokes and wisecracks.