Do You Have the Restless Urge to Write?
Well, DO YOU? Because Bennett Cerf wants to know! Or he did want to know, oh, 50 years ago or so.
This looks totally silly, right? Some kind of scam to take advantage of new writers? Well, guess who Bennett Cerf was: only one of the founders of the LARGEST ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOK PUBLISHER IN THE WORLD (Random House.)
Okay, so let’s see what writers were affiliated with this. ROD SERLING? ROD freaking SERLING?? (Of Twilight Zone fame.)
I wasn’t familiar with any of the other names, but several of them at least do seem to be successful writers of their era:
- Faith Baldwin: “a very successful U.S. author of romance and fiction, publishing some 100 novels, often concentrating on women juggling career and family. The New York Times said that her books had ‘never a pretense at literary significance’ and were popular because they ‘enabled lonely working people, young and old, to identify with her glamorous and wealthy characters.’”
- Bruce Catton: “an American journalist and notable historian of the American Civil War. He won a Pulitzer Prize for history in 1954 for A Stillness at Appomattox, his study of the final campaign of the war in Virginia.”
- Rudolf Flesch: “an author, readability expert and writing consultant who was a vigorous proponent of plain English in the United States. He created the Flesch Reading Ease test and was co-creator of the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test [anyone who's used Microsoft Word has likely run into this. ---JJA].”
- Other authors: Bergen Evans, Mignon G. eberhart, John Caples, J. D. Ratcliff, Mark Wiseman, Max Shulman, Red Smith.
(Strangely, the first three of the authors I looked up all died in 1978. COINCIDENCE??)
Oh, but LOOKEE HERE. My scam radar was not off after all. It seems there was a considerable scandal over the Famous Writers School’s business practices. The expose—“Let Us Now Appraise Famous Writers”—written by Jessica Mitford*, appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1970, and because we live in the future, you can just click through and read it right now. Snippet from Wikipedia: “Several of the Guiding Faculty attempted to defend the school’s practices, with Faith Baldwin saying ‘Oh, that’s just one of those things about advertising…. Anyone with common sense would know that the fifteen of us are much too busy to read the manuscripts the students send in.’” Yes—how silly that anyone would assume that the writers on staff would READ the manuscripts the students send in.
Man, I don’t know about you, but I’m dying to get my hands on a copy of this aptitude test.
————————————————————
*Mitford also wrote an expose on the funeral industry—which I haven’t read, but sounds fantastic—called The American Way of Death.
Sam M-B
9:42 am Sep-2-2010This reminds me so much of the commercials for Art Instruction Schools:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gueUrgf5mPs
“Have you ever wanted to develop your artistic abilities? If so, you may already have the interest and desire needed to become a serious art student. To find out, simply call toll free, and Art Instruction Schools will send you this enjoyable art test. There is no cost or obligation. Take the test at home in your spare time and mail it to us when you are done. Our experts will review and score your test.”
Gef
11:06 am Sep-2-2010Oh my god, yes. The aptitude test for artistry. I almost ordered that as a child, but then my dad had to burst my bubble and tell me it was only a scam to sell stationary and art supplies. Damn you, cruel world.
I forgot there was a writing equivalent. Shameful stuff.
Ace
11:07 am Sep-2-2010At least it wasn’t in conjunction with Publish America…
Pat Lundrigan
11:41 am Sep-9-2010R. Lory was in F&SF — were you able to find his story?
John Joseph Adams
11:44 am Sep-9-2010Oh! I didn’t realize, and so no I didn’t look it up. I do have every issue of F&SF, though, so I’ll try to check it out when I have a chance.
Wendy
6:43 pm Sep-9-2010You have EVERY ISSUE OF F&SF???? You are officially my hero. :)
John Joseph Adams
6:59 pm Sep-9-2010I do! Someone was selling his complete run for $300, so I jumped at the chance. I had been trying to collect them piecemeal on eBay, which was frustrating and very difficult (plus I ended up with lots of duplicates). At $300, it was less than 50 cents per issue, so I figured it was a good deal. And he was just up in the Bronx, so I was able to drive to his place to pick them up.