The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-08-27
Alabama Author Whom OctoUus Roy
 Cohen Pronounces "Highly Talented'
Product of Dallas County Con- tributes Her Clever Stories to Magazines, Starting Eight Years Ago More in a Spirit of Fun Than Otherwise, Only to Find Herself Famous
By DOLLY DALRYMPLE

How'd you like to have Octavus Roy Cohen, Alabama's most widely known and popular writer of fiction, stand before the Federation of Women's clubs in annual convention and unreservedly state that you are the most promising and highly tal- lnted writer of short stories in your own dear native state?
 Moreover-how'd you like to make good" this statement by win- ming the Federation Prize" for the best "short story?"
 We'll. if you feel like I do about it. would be tickled pink--and you'd be so 'stuck up" that not even your best friend could speak to you civilly.
 But listen:
 Mrs. Katherine Leiser Robbins, to whom Mr. Cohen has paid the enVla- ble compliment mentioned, has too much good hard sound sense to eloose her head" or even get all unified up' over encomiums of praise heaped upon her work, but like the splendid, fine, sensible women she IS she just bushes (the old fashioned way; l was glad to see It hadh gone out of style) and says mod- estly;
 "I heard that MT. Cohen had been kind enough to say some very nice things about my work and l am deeply appreciative because think he is the most wonderful of writer's certainly the most popular in Amer lea today and I hope l can Justify his belief in me-
 Pretty as a Picture.
 
 given talent of being highly sue cessfui writer of fiction, Mrs. Rob- bins has to just go and be pretty as a picture" besides;
 Big gray eyes, lovely smile; the most winning expression-ahd you have a pen picture" of this lovely woman-whom you had rather ex- pected to be pretty, because you've seen and know her attractive sister, Mrs. Townes, and yet you are rather yexed when you find 1t is true be- cause it's just too much for any one mere woman to have Hooks" and | "cleverness' too.
 Mrs. Robbins talks charmingly of , her work-how she wrote her first story, and sold it; and how that en- .couraged her so tremendously to keep on keeping on' that she has today "arrived''-all this in eight short years, too, if you please. Spicy and Up-to-Date. You will be amazed when I tell you that many stories and novelettes are accepted by the spiciest and most up to date magazines" Mrs. Robbins tells you smilingly. While l was horn and bred in Dallas county and it would be very natural to suppose that I would write stories relevant to that section of the country, l don't and haven't.
 My stories are all laid on Long Island and Broadway and are written around the people who frequent those parts of the country; the high fliers and gay folk of whom I know noth- ing yet write about"
 And why?" I interpolated the question just here do you write about these people instead of our own hill-billies' and the negroes and folk lore of the south?" Merely because the stories sell better" Mrs. Robbins answered 1 quickly. "It is what the public de- mands and of course the clever author knowing this gives the public what it wants.
 "I have tucked away back in my head, though, the plot for a real novel and it will center around Alabama and Alabama's own; the negroes and white folks in Dallas and Perry coun- ties; their customs; and ways; their romances; yes. as little as you'll think, there is romance stalking red handed in the backwoods counties of old Alabama, and this I mean to visualize
 "The famous black belt of Ala