July 30: The New Yorker, Salaried Professional Writer, Dreams

Harold Ross, the founder of The New Yorker, literally begged E. B. White to join the staff of his fledgling magazine.  Ross begged for a couple of months.  Eventually, White relented:

Finally, in January 1927, Andy agreed to contribute new work every week and to show up every weekday, at least for a few hours, at a small office that was assigned to him.  In return Harold Ross agreed to pay him $30 per week.,  [White] had left Frank Seaman and was now working part-time at a different advertising agency, J. H. Newmark, where he earned the same amount.  Surely a frugal man could live on $60 a week, especially while still rooming with three others.  More important than the money, about which [White] had an almost cavalier attitude, was that at twenty-seven he had suddenly become a salaried professional writer.

E. B. White lucked out.  He got hired by The New Yorker before it became THE NEW YORKER, the magazine that every poet, writer, and essayist wanted to appear in.  Nowadays, most poets would sacrifice a limb to have even one poem published in its pages.  I, personally, would sacrifice a testicle to land a poem in The New Yorker.  White didn't have to make a blood offering.  He, almost literally, walked into a job as a staff writer/editor.

Of course, E. B. White did hang around New York for a few years before Harold Ross came knocking.  He published in various magazines and newspapers, and he dreamed of being the next Franklin Pierce Adams (F. P. A.) or Don Marquis.  He dreamed a lot, and he wrote a lot.

I think one of the requirements of being a writer is the ability to dream.  Almost every writer I know dreams of publishing in magazines like The New Yorker or landing a book on the bestseller lists.  Putting words on a page is an act of hope.  Hope that somebody will want to read it, publish it, give it a Pulitzer Prize.  Big dreams.

I've been dreaming writing dreams for a very long time.  I've published a book of poems.  I'm the poetry editor of an internationally respected literary magazine.  I've been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  I've had some success, but I'm still dreaming.  The day that I stop dreaming is the day that I stop writing.

Saint Marty has a dream tonight that some major editor or literary agent will read this post, track him down, and offer him a contract for an obscene amount of money.  It might happen.

Dream a little dream...