The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-12
By DoLLY7 DALRYMpLE

| 1ON ECENTLY l received lettei | lM from Zoe Beckleys it had to d'
 NS with her first novel, "A Chance To Live; naturally l was interested il her book for more reasons than one first, because I admire her newspape
 work so tremendously; secondly, becaus'
 she is the sister of>one of my most es
 teemed friends, Mrs. Leslie Fulenwider
 and thirdly, Gas the preachers say), be
 cause it was first novel"
 | added another reason to my list
 after l. read Mrs. Beckley's letter, whicf | told me the circumstances and the con
 ditions under which the book was writ
 ten, and threw another light on the sup. l ject quite different from what any
 body else could have suggested the let.
 ter follows:
 1 Dear Dolly Dalrymple:
 T have just written to the Maxmillau
 company Gmy publishers, to send>you a copy of "A Chance To Live It is my
 first book baby and it has not the
 constitution I would have wished for it. | quite when you read it Gf you do) re- | member that 1t was written as an as- 1 signment'-just as every other thing was
 done in the course of my newspaper
 job.
 1 The editor said, Write novel; some.
 thing about struggle-see ?-and the diff faculties of those who have not started ] Tn life with fair chance. Turn it in
 soon, because I want you to get back ! to your regular work
 l He left me for dead. I didn't know how to write book. But then, hadn t
 known how to do lot of things I had 1 been told to do. So 1 just plunged in, and wrote what l knew about turning l out almost an average of a chapter a day. They began printing it when I had
 seven chapters finished. And maybe l didn't have first-class panic when l realized that I might get hit with an
 automobile or have the grippe, or the pip, i or forget what was doing (asphasia, isn i it0, or go clean batty, or something, so l that I couldn't hold .out to get the thing finished! The first part was pretty
 much The factory part I got at ! first hand from Rose Schneidermann q | well known labor organizer here, and I other girls, one of whom went through ! the frightful Triangle fire. The tene- ment life is pieced together from true | bits contributed by persons I know. And l the end is The Peoples House which | stands just around the corner.
 l Someday I hope to do a book which | shall not be produced under such fear l full pressure. This whole one was gath cred and written in about 10 weeks. 1t | ran about six weeks as a serial in The l Evening Mail, beginning in March. Then l in the summer, 1 recast the last chap 1 ters, lengthening the story little. And believe me when 1 say it is as easy to l remake your last years kimono into | this year evening gown, as to tinker luyiti, TO Ia ha no well, or it 'puckers' in the seams-or something.
 i~".A Chance To Live is in short. q 1 newspaper novel and has all the short comings of hastily written piece. 1 send you this as an explanation of its crudties, in some measure, at least. With warmest admiration and good wishes, Always,
 ZOE BECKLEY." l With, this interesting "data" at hand. I opened the pages of Mrs. BeclSley s , first book baby "-and the first thing | that greeted my vision was "Foreword' l ing of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the executive commit tee meeting of the Colonial Danes which
 was held in the Hotel Tutwier. While | tinguished guest of Miss Hattie Mont gomery and her mother.--Tuscaloosa |
 News. | Mrs. LeGrande Elebash, Mrs. A. J. Atkins, Miss Ruth Russell, Miss Helen Anderson, Mrs. George Baker, MT. Joseph Wilkins and Mir Ed Gamble of Selma, spent the weekend in the city, having made the trip in the Bakers car Miss Edwina Thaggard is spending a few days in Montgomery with friends.
  Friends will be interested to learn that Mrs. TI$M. Perry has arrived safely overssa A cablegram to MT. Perry, who is now in California, conveyed this in formation.
 Mr. Edwin Lyles Taylor and family are expected home today for visit over the Christmas holidays. MT. Taylor has been organist at the Strand theatre and Five Points Methodist church of Birmingham, but is now planning to return to New | York city after the first of the year. It will be remembered that MT. Taylor at tained the unusual honor or passing the fellowship examination in the American Guild of Organists this year; and his many friends in the metropolis are anX- ious to renew his acquaintance in the city where he was so well appreciated for period of ten years. It is pe- culiar fact that MT. Taylor left New York at a, time just when the organ was beginning to become the popular instrument that it is today in the motion
 pictures-Mobile RegisteS.
 Mrs. J. D. Rosenberger is recovering from a recent attack of influenza. There will be no meeting of the South Highland School Improvement association until the second Wednesday in January.