The fifth printing of this Directory-which is constantly being revised and enlarged - began in THE WRITER for January, 1928. The information for it, showing the manuscript requirements of the various publications listed, is gathered directly from the editors of the periodicals. An asterisk preceding the name of a periodical indicates that the information has had the editor's "O.K." Items not so marked are as accurate as they can be made, but editorial "O.K." on proof submitted was not received before printing.

Before submitting manuscripts to any publication it is advisable to, secure a sample copy.

(Continued from January WRITER)

ADVENTURE (S-M), Spring and MacDougal sts., .New York $6.00; 25c. Anthony M. Rud, editor.

A man's magazine, with action as the primary appeal. Prints fiction with any kind of strong human-interest appeal having the atmosphere or setting of adventure and the outdoors, avoiding the openly psychological story. All matter must be true to life so that the reader can "believe it happened," and must be clean and wholesome. Uses short stories, novels, novelettes, serials, fact articles, and poetry. Sets no length limit, buys no photographs, and pays on acceptance.

*AIR STORIES (M), Fiction House, Inc., 271 Madison ave., New York. $2.50; 20c. J. B. Kelly, editor; Meredith Davis, managing editor.

Wants fast-moving, air-adventure stories, with American aviator heroes, and some war air stories. Uses short stories, novelettes, serials, and complete novels, but no general articles, poetry, or jokes. Sets length limit for short stories at 6,000 words; for novelettes at 12,000 words; for novels at 25,000 words; and for serials at 50,000 words, does not buy photographs, and pays, at a minimum rate of one cent a word, on acceptance.

ALL'S WELL (M), Fayetteville, Arkansas. $2.00; 20c. Charles J. Finger, editor.

Mr. Finger writes: "Somehow All's Well has evolved into a strictly personal exposition." AMATEUR MOVIE MAKERS (M), 105 West 40th st., New York. $3.00; 25c. J. B. Carrigan, editor.

The official publication of the American Cinema League, published to increase the pleasure of making home movies by aiding amateurs to make and produce their own motion pictures. Interested in anything which has in any way to do with amateur motion pictures, or any serious treatment of motion pictures in any field. Uses general articles on amateur motion pictures, short stories, poetry, humorous verse, and jokes if touching on amateur movies, but no novelettes, serials, or juvenile matter. Sets length limit at 1,500 words, buys

photographs, and pays, at a minimum rate of one cent a word, on publication.

* AMAZING STORIES (M), 230 Fifth ave., New York. $2.50; 25c. Hugo Gernsback, editor.

Desires romances of the future, of interplanetary travel, fourth dimensional and sometimes prehistoric times, etc. Stories must be based on exact, present-day scientific knowledge. The author may go off into wild flights of the imagination but must stay within the bounds of plausibility. Uses short stories, novelettes, serials, and a little poetry, but no general articles, humorous verse, or jokes. Sets length limit for short stories at from 5,000 to 15,000 words, and for novelettes, at about 35,000 words, does not buy photographs, and pays, at the rate of from $15 to $50 a story, on publication.

*AMERICA'S HUMOR (M), Magazine Builders, Inc., 49 West 45th st., New York. $2.50; 25c. George Mitchell, editor.

Uses burlesque articles on any institution of life the stage and moving pictures, politics, sports, society, travel, radio, fashion, etc.; also burlesque fiction on love, college life, crime, detective stories, and western life. Sets length limit for fiction at from 2,000 to 4,000 words, and for articles at 2,000 words. Pays, at a mimimum rate of one cent a word on publication.

*AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST (W), 461 Fourth ave., New York. $1.00; 5c. E. R. Eastman, editor.

All manuscripts prepared on assignment from the editorial office. Not in the market.

Volume 40

IT

T is an unpleasant commentary upon American literature that the one field of art in which we are indubitably supreme should be the one most lacking in value and permanence. I speak of the short story, which has reached a technical perfection while remaining in the class of the motion picture (which draws heavily upon it for source material) when analyzed for that interpretation or presentation of life which is necessary to art. Time and again critics have pointed out that the short story which appears in our magazines and anthologies is a cadaver, a well-constructed body which, somehow, lacks that viability found in the less perfect forms of the French novella.

This far I go with the critics; but I cannot agree with them that the lifelessness of our short stories is due to lack of ability in the authors: a study of our novels and biographies is proof that there is both strength and beauty in American writing. Rather I think the trouble has arisen from the difficulty which the serious writer has experienced in answering satisfactorily two questions: how to tell the truth without landing in the jail or the poor house.

It is an easy problem to escape the jail. The libel and sedition laws can be avoided by writing of facts without giving names, dates, places, without setting down too clearly the proscribed facts, yet

changing them only as much as is necessary. So general is this practice that we safely may say that almost all realistic fiction is an evasion of those laws which man has created to suppress those facts about himself which, when revealed, would react against him.

But it is no easy problem for the serious short story writer to escape the poor house, and the difficulty experienced here is largely responsible, I believe, for the preponderance of strength which the novel possesses over the shorter medium. For the short story writer who wishes to be an artist has met with a triple handicap: he has been hampered in free expression by the editorial policy of the magazines; by the difficulty of expressing an important truth within the limit of 7,000 words; and by the impermanence of his published product. And because of these limitations the immense possibilities of the short story remain unrealized, and its vast output, except in a few notable instances, is vapid and trivial, interesting enough for half an hour, but forgotten before the minute hand has completed its circle.

But notable exceptions remain, the potential value of the short story remains; and a study of the barriers which prevent fulfilment gives us some reason to hope that they will be broken.

At present there is little to be hoped for from the editors of magazines which

have sufficient circulation to be able to pay the author a proper price. The masses in our democracy cannot and will not face the facts about issues which intelligent men are studying. Even so, there is reason to hope: for a few stories dealing with vital problems in a sincere and artistic manner are finding their way into the better magazines, and the number of them is slowly increasing each year as the demand increases. The brain power of man is no greater than in the time of Plato, but his assembled knowledge of facts is, and new magazines are being organized to give the intelligent group of readers articles and interpretatively realistic stories which would have found no market a score of years ago. But only the editor of a progressive magazine can reasonably be expected to publish such stories; and it would be unfair to ask him to publish many during a year: for the chief purpose of the short story must remain its original purpose entertainment.

So it seems that we have reached an impasse. There is, however, one way around it. But before discussing it, let us look at the other limitations.

Length has been, and will remain, a handicap to to the serious short story writer. Most important subjects require a much larger frame than can be found in the short story, even the long short story. The novelists have their 100,000 words for portrayal; the worker in the shorter medium has but from 4,000 to 10,000 words. Can he take any of the serious subjects mentioned, and give it adequate treatment within the shorter length, especially when his treatment is arbitrarily limited by the technical form of his medium? The answer is "No"!

But let us grant, for the sake of argument, that he could. What then? His story lacks permanence. It is bound in the loose form of the magazine; importance and theme are blurred by the images of other articles and stories placed beside it which are of different texture and which strike an entirely different note. Within a month it is dis

carded, and even if it is lucky enough to find a position in an anthology or collection, the lustre of its truth is dimmed by the different gems in the same setting, or, to use another figure, the motif of its music is lost in the cacophany resulting from having each artist represented playing, not only upon a different instrument, but a different song.

It is this fate which has overtaken the works of those authors who have sought to give their stories the physical permanence of the novel by having them bound within the covers of a book. Even in the novel permanence of binding does not cause popularity, as publishers admit about their failures, but both popularity and permanence are the result of intrinsic value. And so many a short story writer has regretfully discovered that binding his effete magazine stories between boards preserved them only upon the shelves of his own library.

What, then, can the artist who elects. the short story do to help his work attain the dignity of the novel, its permanence and its value? An examination of current book lists gives us clues to two different answers.

Probably for the first time in American publishing, two collections of stories are numbered among the best sellers Edna Ferber's "Mother Knows Best" and Thyra Samter Winslow's "People Around the Corner." It seems to me that we must dismiss the former; for although originally published as short stories, the collection is exactly what its publisher terms it: a collection of short novels. Only one or two of the stories fall within the short story pattern, as even a cursory observation will prove. Also the subjects are diversified, and the book's popularity, unless I am mistaken, rests upon Miss Ferber's penetration and style, together with her past reputation.

The other of these affords exactly the example I wish. Very few, if any, of these stories appeared in magazines before appearing in their present form; largely, I suspect, because they do not meet the demand of the large magazines.