Short verse, of from eight to twelve lines, is used, also.

Liberty (247 Park avenue, New York) wants some women's interest articles.

Beautiful America (220 West Forty-second street, New York) is in need of some nontechnical stories of scientific activities and some humorous travelogues in the United States.

The Torchbearer (810 Broadway, Nashville, Tenn, ), a periodical for girls of from ten to seventeen, is in the market for stories, of from 3,000 to 3,500 words; serials, of eight or ten chapters; articles, of approximately 2,000 words, illustrated by photographs ; poems, containing not more than twenty lines; and editorials, of from 300 to 1,000 words.

The Motion Picture Magazine (175 Duffield street, Brooklyn, N. Y.) is in the market for lively and authentic motion-picture articles that have real news value. The editors also consider mystery stories that have a strong motion-picture tie-up, but they must be written by people who really know studio life. The magazine runs numerous contests connected with its various departments.

Burten's Follies (109 West Forty-ninth street, New York) is in the market for jokes - especially in negro dialect- skits, humor-ous verse, and limericks. Very short stories, not exceeding 500 words, are also wanted.

The Kindergarten and First Grade Magazine (23 Washington place, New York) is in the market for good, short stories for children, not fairy tales, but realistic nursery fiction for the modern child.

The Nation's Garden (Box 907, Wilmington, N. C.) is in the market for some live, bright, short stories.

The Designer (12 Vandam street, New York) wants short stories, of from 8,000 to 9,000 words. Stories that deal with the woman's angle on life are particularly welcome, although, as Miss Cassidy, the fiction editor, says, the feminine element does not necessarily make a story good nor does the

The Universal Trade Press Syndicate wants additional trade-paper correspondents with broad experience. It wants reporters who can get stories based on actual trade experiences of people in a trade, and while it is interested in every conceivable kind of a trade story, its immediate needs are for correspondents in the coal mining and lumber fields where there are many commissary or company stores operated by industrial companies. It also needs immediately correspondents familiar with the insurance, furniture, rubber, picture, and gift fields. For further information, address T. A. Gallagher, News Editor, 522 Fifth avenue, New York.

Own Your Own Home is the name of a new monthly magazine to be published by the Macfadden Publications, 1926 Broadway, New York. It will be a practical service magazine edited to appeal to prospective home builders and home owners. All articles will be inspirational, and one fiction story will be in

cluded in each issue. The first issue will be the November number.

Heart to Heart Stories (45 West Fortyfifth street, New York) discontinued publication with the July issue.

Advertising (formerly Newspaperdom) has merged with the Editor & Publisher (Suite 1700, Times Building, New York).

John D. Long asks THE WRITER to announce that he no longer has any connection with Motor Camper & Tourist (53 Park place, New York), of which he has been the managing editor.

Louise Townsend Nicholl has resigned the editorship of the Measure (223 West Fifteenth street, New York), and E. Merrill Root has been elected Acting Editor for August, September, and October. Manuscripts should be mailed to him at East Thompson, Connecticut.

The subject of the second contest with prizes offered by Triple-X Magazine for letters from readers of the magazine is: "The Most Exciting Struggle I Ever Witnessed." No restrictions are placed as to the type of struggle, the only requirement being that it be exciting. Manuscripts should be sent to "B" Contest Editor, Triple-X Magazine, Robbinsdale, Minn.

The prize of $50,000 offered by Liberty for a short story with motion-picture possibilities has been awarded to Fannie Hurst.

Prize offers still open:

Prizes in Letters offered by the Columbia University School of Journalism: For the American novel Fublished during the year which shall best present the wholesome atmosphere of American life and the highest standard of American manners and manhood, $1,000 for the original American play, performed in New York, which shall best represent the educational value and power of the stage in raising the standard of good morals, good taste, and good manners, $1,000; for the best book of the year on the history of the United States, $2,000; for the best American biography teaching patriotic and unselfish services to the people, illustrated by an eminent

example, $1,000; for the best volume of verse published during the year by an American author, $1,000. Also, Prizes in Journalism, amounting to$3,000 and a $500 medal, and three traveling scholarships having a value of $1,500 each. All offered annually under the term of the will of Joseph Pulitzer. Nominations of candidates must be made in writing on or before February 1 of each year, addressed to. the Secretary of Columbia University, New York, on forms that may be obtained on application to the Secretary of the University.

Helen Haire Levinson prize of $200, and four prizes of $100 each, offered by Poetry (232 East Erie street, Chicago) for poems published in the magazine during the current year. Particulars in June WRITER.

Hart, Schaffner, & Marx prize of $5,000 for the best original treatise on the Theory of Wages, contest closing October 1. Particulars in May WRITER. Monthly prizes totalling $50 offered by Triple-X Magazine for experiences of readers. Particulars in May WRITER.

Bookman prizes amounting to $250 for the best humorous poetry appearing in the Fun Shop, $125for the period from June 1 to December 25, and $125. for the period from December 26 to May 1, 1926. Particulars in August WRITER.

Prize of $25 offered by Voices for the best poem published in Volume IV of the magazine, the last number of which will be October, 1925. Particulars in May WRITER.

Prize of $2,500, to be awarded in 1925 and every three years thereafter, and an annual prize of $300, offered by the Chicago Trust Company for the best contribution on any subject relating to business development and the modern trust ticulars in March WRITER.

company. Par

Prizes amounting to $20,000 offered by the Florida. Society of America (Hollywood, Florida) in a competition designed to find out what products are best suited for manufacture in the State of Florida. Particulars in June WRITER, or may be obtained from the president of the Society.

Prize of $100 offered in the twenty-third annual competition of the Chicago Madrigal Club for the best musical setting of the poem, "In the Merry Month of May," competition closing September 15. Information may be obtained from D. A. Clippinger, 617 Kimball Building, Chicago.

Prizes of $500, $250, two of $50, $25, and fiftyprizes of a volume of Conrad's works, offered by the Saturday Review of Literature (New York) forthe best essays on the probable ending of Conrad's novel, Suspense," contest closing October I. Particulars in August WRITER.

66

Prizes offered by Ziffs for "The World's Best Simile," contest closing October 15. Particulars in August WRITER.

Prizes of $100, $75, $50, and ten prizes of $10 each offered by the Proctor & Gamble Company for the largest list of quotations from literary works in which "Ivory Soap," etc., occurs, contest closing October 1. Particulars in August WRITER.

Prize of $50 offered by the Harvard School of Education at Harvard University for an official song. Particulars in February, 1924, WRITER.

Prize of $25 for the best poem published in the Mesa during 1925. Particulars in March WRITER.

The Canadian Bookman (125 Simcoe street, Toronto, Canada) offers each month three prizes in a book review competition.

Annual poetry prize of $100 offered by the Nation, poems to be submitted between Thanksgiving Day and New Year's Day of each year. Particulars in February, 1923, WRITER.

Annual prize for senior and high school student poetry offered by Witter Bynner through the Scholastic (Pittsburgh, Penn).

Three prizes of $50 each for poems published in the Lyric West during 1925. Particulars in March WRITER.

Prizes of the Poetry Society of South Carolina; Blindman Prize of $250; Southern Prize of $100; Society's Prize of $25; Henry E. Harman Prize of $25; Sky Lark Prize of $10 all offered annually. Particulars in January, 1923, WRITER.

Monthly prizes offered by the Photo-Era Magazine (Wolfeboro, N. H.) for photographs, in an advanced competition and a beginner's competition.

Walker prizes for the best memoirs on Natural History, offered annually by the Boston Society of Natural History, closing March 1 of each calendar year. Particulars in June WRITER.

Weekly prizes offered by the Boston Post for original short stories by women, published each day. Particulars in May WRITER.

WRITERS OF THE DAY.

Elizabeth Burgess Hughes, whose short story, "Faithful to Thee," appeared in Munsey's for June, says that she received her first check for writing when she was twelve years old. It was for seven dollars and a half, and the receipt of it, she says, gave her the greatest thrill that she has ever known. Between the ages of twelve and seventeen she wrote a good deal for the home papers, and at fourteen she sold a number of stories to household magazines and wrote some essays for the Atlanta Constitution. Then she married and had a son, and while household cares did not kill the desire to write, she says they did keep it decidedly in hibernation. After this she spent five years in New York, and she now lives in Washington. Mrs. Hughes says she has always envied the systematic, orderly writer, who keeps notebooks and regular hours and can always tell the why and wherefore of his work. For herself, if she feels

that she must write, she does it badly, with no inspiration; but when she is convinced it would n't mean a thing to posterity if she never wrote a line she resents the idea and immediately becomes fired with zeal. But inspiration, she adds, is another story. That does n't come every day, nor can it be coaxed. She thinks that perhaps one writes oftenest out of the memory of inspiration, and that, anyway, all writers can do is to steep themselves in life and then let their impressions of it rise out of the steam of their immersion, and so reach other people. Nothing can be written that somebody has n't felt; but the air is full of plots. A face- a laugh- a sentence overheard in a crowd-out of these may emerge, eventually, a good story.

66

Margaret Tod Ritter, author of the poem, 'Warning," which was printed in the July Century, was born in Frederick, Maryland, and was privately educated, although for a very short while she attended Hood's College, Maryland. When she was sixteen she removed to Colorado Springs, where she now lives. Miss Ritter is a member of the Poetry Society of America, and almost the whole bulk of her work lies in poetry. Her first book of collected poems, "Mirrors," was published last spring by the Macmillan Company.

Edwin D. Torgerson, who wrote the story, "Treed," which came out in Scribner's for July, was born in Meridian, Mississippi, where his father was an architect. He was old enough, he says, when McKinley was assassinated to run to his mother screaming: "The President has been shot by anarchitect!" which was what the newspaper headlines seemed to say to him. His father boxed his ears for thus libelling his profession, and Mr. Torgerson says he grew up with the determination never to be either an architect or an anarchist. When he was in the graduating class of the Birmingham high school the editor of a local newspaper asked the school authorities to recommend two boys who were "bright in English," and he and Jack Bethea, author of the novels," Bed Rock" ("Coming Through" on the screen) and "Black Damp," were chosen. After ten years of newspaper work in the South, Mr. Torgerson went to New

York, where he lived in Greenwich Village for several years engaging in the advertising business, until Mrs. Torgerson suggested a back-to-the-land movement, and they returned to Birmingham, where they now live. Mr. Torgerson has had about forty stories published, and he now devotes half his time to writing, spending three hours every morning at the typewriter, where his output is about twelve hundred words a day. He believes that only spontaneous work is good work, and seldom revises a story unless a suggestion comes from an editor for a specific change. "Treed" was written in five mornings and was not revised, except for minor corrections. Mr. Torgerson says that every story that he has sold has been humorous, for although tragic themes have a certain dark fascination for him, they also have a way of remaining eminently tragic from a marketing standpoint.

Everett Young, whose story, "Diana and the House of Hate," was published in the July Delineator, was born in France and has spent about half of his life abroad. Of recent years he has been connected with Government service and has lived all over the Eastern half of the United States. His first published work was a novel, "A Gentleman of Sorts," brought out by Henry Holt & Co. two years ago. Mr. Young says that his writing now is in the by-product stage, but he hopes ultimately to devote his entire time to it, and he has a novel practically completed now. He says he does n't care much about writing short stories, preferring the book form as offering more scope for atmosphere and character development, which is what interests him in writing. He adds that he does n't write, but re-writes, polishing a thing over and over again until it pleases him, frequently making two or more longhand drafts and as many typewritten copies, and doing the typewriting himself, as it gives him extra chances for revising and changing.

PERSONAL GOSSIP ABOUT AUTHORS.

Bartley. As a child, I always scribbled stories. Leaving school, I became a reporter for the Buffalo Express and to this experience

I owe a great share of my success. I learned to "know news" and to feature the human interest in it. Even while doing society reporting, I kept a note-book, jotting down ideas and plots as they came to me. I still keep a note-book and believe it an invaluable help.

At last I wrote a story-the Smart Set bought it. Being twenty and unafraid, I left the paper and became a free lance in New York. Robert H. Davis of Munsey's was my guiding star for the next two years. Among the things he taught me was this gem: To be a writer means to be a re-writer. I wrote for other magazines and then came the idea for a full-fledged novel, "Paradise Auction." I had left New York at this time and was living quietly in Buffalo. I had learned that one can write anywhere - if one has ideas. New York can't help you any more than Peoria or Buffalo.

After the first novel came its successor and the experience of seeing stories put on the motion-picture screen and then more novels and more stories. But it was all the result of hard work very little of what one is apt to call inspiration.

I have never found an editor who was not willing to help one, if one accepted criticism in the spirit of good sportsmanship. I have never written a story that was rejected but what, in due time, I saw the reason why. I have never felt that I have written my best story and I hope that I never shall. — Nalbro Bartley, in L. A. P. W. Bulletin.

Repplier. When 1 was a young girl, driven to work by desire and by necessity, I wrote short stories. A number of them were published, which they hardly deserved to be. One day an old, kind and intelligent German priest said to me: "Why do you write fiction? You are not a born story-teller. Your tales are not transcripts from life, they do not even show that you have the habit of observation, they are unconscious echoes of the books you read. Why do you not write essays?"

"Essays!" I repeated, very much puzzled. "But I don't know how. I don't even know what to write about."

The priest thought for a moment, then he asked "Who is your favorite author?" "Ruskin," I answered promptly. It was the

New Haven, Sept. 24, 1823. Dear Sir I expected you would call upon me the morning you left New Haven but you disappointed me and I must write what I want to say to you. You must have heard that I have been many years in compiling a complete dictionary of our language. My researches have been laborious and extensive, and I think fruitful in discoveries. As I am drawing toward the conclusion of the work, I think of going to England next summer to revise and complete the work and to try to obtain a reception of it in that -country. But my resources are too scanty for such an undertaking and I want to avail myself of all my extra means.

I have on hand a new book of my own publishing, entitled "Letters to a young gentleman concerning his education," some of which I think may be sold in Albany. The retail price is $1.75, the work being a thin octavo. The sheet price is 90 cents and for a hundred or more I would say 80 cents. Now, Sir, will not Webster and Skinner assist me, by taking a hundred or two, either bound or in sheets; bound at $1.29 or in sheet at 80 cents? If you will, it will very much oblige me.

My dictionary has cost me twenty-six years of labor and about $30,000. If I succeed I shall reimburse myself and be able to compensate all my friends for their advances. If I should not, I shall be left in my old age with small means for subsistence.

Please to present our kind respects to Mrs. W. and other friends.

Yours with affection and respect,

N. WEBSTER,

CURRENT LITERARY TOPICS.

Incomes of English Authors. A writer in the London Evening Standard has been giving to his public some information on the incomes of living British authors. His disclosures contain some interesting surprises. At

the top of his list stands Hall Caine with an income of $500,000 a year. More than a million of Caine's books have been sold within the last three years; no play of his has ever failed, and he adds to his income from sale of the motion-picture rights.

Next comes Barrie, who has received as much as $220,000 in a year out of his novels and plays. "Peter Pan" alone brought $250,000 in royalties to him.

Incomes of $100,000 a year are achieved by H. G. Wells, Bernard Shaw, W. Somerset Maughan, and E. Phillips Oppenheim. Mr. Wells is credited with having made $300,000 out of his "Outline of History." Arnold Bennett's average income is put at $80,000 a year.

Such incomes really make it look as if the old, romantic days of authors starving in garrets had passed. New York Sun.

Special Editions. Shortly before Lord Curzon died a special copy of a well-known newspaper was printed with a view to concealing from him the progress of his illness. For this unique copy the bulletin issued by his doctors was withdrawn, and another much more favorable, was substituted.

This kind of deception is not rare. For five days in succession a postal subscriber to a certain morning newspaper received a special copy which, unlike all the others, did not contain a report of the trial of his son. The subscriber, who was bedridden, read only this journal, and the suppression was made, at the request of his family, to hide from him the disgrace his son had brought on his name. He was thus kept in ignorance of the matter up to his death, which took place about six months afterward.

Some years ago a one-copy edition of a magazine was prepared. A young woman sent a travel article to the editor, and shortly afterward she was taken seriously ill. As she expressed a keen desire to see her work in print, her parents communicated with the publishers, and as a result her article ostensibly appeared in the next issue, though in fact it was only one copy. This copy was sent to her, together with a check the amount of which was actually paid by her father.

A more amusing trick of the same character was played on Lord Robertson, familiarly known as "Peter." He sent a copy of his