Box 6475, Met Station,
Los Angeles. Cal.
We feel the same way about artists as you do and if you look you'll find we've taken several of your suggestions. About big-name writers however, Robert W. Lowndes. Chairman of the Futurian Society of New York, has varying views:—
"There are a few suggestions I'd like to offer along the line of making this title really stirring. (1) A 'To Hell with Big Names' policy. As a reader and fan of long standing, you yourself know, that big names do not necessarily mean big stories. There are, true, a few virtually 100 per cent reliables, but they are very few and are nearly all sewed up by other markets. If you can resist the lure of names for your cover, regardless of merit of contributions to which those names are signed (as many editors apparently cannot) one big hurdle will be over and done with. And, on the other hand, if you can dispense with any reluctance at featuring the names of newcomers who have the goods, another will have gone. A great many editors seem determined to bury their best lights under bushels so long as they can publish a roll-call of (one-time) old standbys on their covers month after month.
"(2) Please make sure that the illustrators really illustrate. It's irritating to see a drawing which, upon closer inspection, has little or nothing to do with the story it graces. (3) Please make your readers' column a two-way affair; it may be a little more effort, but that little extra work will put you way ahead of other magazines whose editors either do not believe in the practice of putting personality in their magazines, or are reluctant to spend the extra time. That readers want this can be attested by the flood of positive replies that come up when the question is raised, and by the high standing that the old time discussions and readers columns had in the first science-fiction magazines. (4) Do not fence yourself around with policy. No story which you would like to use is over the heads of your readers and too high class for them. Keep a fumigator handy for authors who try to write down to readers.
"And, generally speaking, rig up some sort of device which will remind you periodically of all the things which you constantly demanded from other editors when you were a fan. Most editors who have risen from the ranks, as it were, seem to have forgotten that they were fans once; or have become aloof in the manner which they deplored so well when they wrote articles and letters. So long as you can keep the magazine up to a level which would have kept you haunting newsstands for it had someone else been putting out the identical thing a year or so ago, then neither you nor we fans have anything to worry about. Stirring will be tops and stirring away like mad!"
129 West 103 St.,
New York City
We suppose that we ought to comment in detail on Mr. Lowndes' opinions as he wishes but we can't because frankly we agree with most of what he says. We intend to edit Stirring without trepidation and in such a way as to play absolutely fair and square with our readers. We have tried to make a good start in this issue, we hope that we have succeeded and we guarantee you that we intend to make our magazine the leader in the field. We welcome your opinions and your comments and in our next issue will present in The Vortex as many of these views as we can find room for. We want you to let us know what you think of this issue, what, you think we can do, and what your views are on anything that may concern the world of imagination. Write us.
Donald A. Wollheim. Editor.
