The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1933-04-29
LUSUS ScRIBENDI

Il
author. Il he has arrived they become
less frequent or cease altogether. But in
the embryonic stage of writing, they
usually come with unceasing regularity.
and it takes spunk and infinite patience
and doggedness to face failures week in
and week out.
Sometimes q writer has produced
something worth while but 1t does not
click at once and the production is bounced
about until it catches the eye Of con
noissear who scents its worth.
Since this happens to the articles of
an established writer, it is evident the road
that an embryo has to travei is very dis
couraging and many drop by the wayside
Some writer's, of course, have more
luck than others, because ability is not al
ways recognized Immediately, while others
miss on the psychological moment and are
doomed to wait for more favorable day
One of Ernest Hemingway's stories
was bounced from pillar to post until it
finally landed ON productive soil Under
the caption "Scribhler,s Luck" Edward
Weeks in the May Atlantic Monthly lets
the reader in on the peregrinations of what
Ray Long, one of the ablest magazine
editors, claims as one of the best prize
fight stories he ever read, but which he
muffed when it was sent him for review.
This writer has published in book form the
twenty stories which seemed to him the
best in his experience, and this is what he
says of one of them:
wv. G.. Lengel was representing the
Hearst group of American magazines in
Europe. One night, in Paris, he went to
prize fight with some friends. There he
met young chap named Hemingway,
Ernest Hemingway He and Hemingway
took to each other from the start. During
the evening the new friend confided to
Lengel that he had written short story.
Bill, always on the alert for new material,
asked him to send it around the next day
And in due course the manuscript came
across the sea to me, and with it the most
enthusiastic letter of praise that ever re
ceiUed from Lengel
Il read the story. It left me cold.
Absolutely cold For the life of me
couldn't see why my associate had got so
excited about It, Ire1ected the story.
Next it went to Scribner's Maxwell
Perkins, one of the most astute editors in
the land, liked the story fairly well, but
thought it should be cut down. Heming-
way refused to do the cutting, and when
someone else tackled the job it was found
that the story as edited didn't make sense.
The author in writing it had cut out every
word that could be spared. Next it went TO
the Saturday Evening Post. And bounded
beck like rubber ball. Next Golfers.
Same result.
And then one night picked up the
Atlantic Monthly and started to read
Fifty Grand just to see what they had
done with IT, They hadn't done thing.
But the editor Of the Atlantic had seen in
the story what Bill Lengel had seen in it,
and what the others, myself heading the
list, had overlooked. And what saw the
minute read the story in type.
Next day wired Lengel to ask his
friend Hemingway to forgive me for the
stupidest blunder I'd ever made. as an.
editor For Fifty Grand. was one of the
best short stories that ever came to my
hands. Il was--and ISL think the best
prize-fight story ever read"