These publications were voracious in their search for material. Though their payments were small by today's standards, they supported many writers who went on to become internationally known names in their particular fields.

Dashiell Hammett, who changed forever the look of detective stories with the introduction of hard-boiled detective Sam Spade, wrote for Black Mask, one of the better pulp magazines. His "The Cleansing of Poisonville," which was serialized in a magazine, later became the novel "Red Harvest." Raymond Chandler wrote short stories for the pulps before achieving fame and stature with books featuring private eye Phillip Marlowe. It seemed that Max Brand's name was on the cover of every western story magazine before he wrote "Destry Rides Again" and turned to television writing with the Young Doctor Kildare series.  Carroll John Daly was another magazine writer of the day who helped change detective story heroes from stiff logicians to tough, street-smart, knocked-about real men. "The False Burton Combs" was probably his best known effort.

Ray Bradbury's science-fiction books became best sellers after he started in the pulps. Erle Stanley Gardner's early work was in these publications. His lawyer-detective Perry Mason went from novel to radio to two different eras in television. Edgar Rice Burroughs survived the rough paper group to become a well known writer.

The popular pulp magazines ranged in price from ten cents for Dime Detective, The Shadow, and Doc Savage to thirty-five cents for the thicker Short Stories. Slick magazines ranged from five cents for Liberty, Colliers, and the Saturday Evening Post to thirty-five cents for the more posh publications and offered the most reading for the money until the first paperback books came out for twenty-five cents

The paper shortages of World War II and greatly increased cost of production killed off most of these short story magazines. Television took care of the rest. Now you can scour the newsstands without finding one magazine devoted entirely to short stories and the ones that occasionally use one have the top writers ready to fill their need.

The rule used to be "Publish a few short stories to establish your name before submitting your first novel." Today it may be easier to publish a novel than a short story. Howard Junker, editor of the magazine Zyzzyva, tells writers to send their manuscript to him. But he says he rejects 99% of the submissions, not for lack of quality but for lack of space.

I took a poll of people who classified themselves "unpublished novelists" to find the reasons they hadn't been published. Some blamed discrimination against women. I looked at the top ten authors on the best-seller list and found that four were men and six were women.

Several said discrimination against older writers by agents kept them from success. I feel this lacks validity since agents work on commission and a dollar of commission from a senior writer buys as much prime rib for the agent as the same amount from a younger writer.

Bias against unpublished writers was the reason given by a few. This is a valid excuse, because the work of unpublished writers is very difficult to sell and many agents just don't have the time to try. This is a catch-22 situation. To get published you must have been published.

One answer is to submit work to magazines or publishers who accept work from the author or to submit to the new E-zines on the net. Before you do, read through several issues of the publication to which you want to submit, and read their submission guidelines carefully. Usually with short stories you won't be asked for a query letter, but some want cover letters, some don't. Address your work to the person who handles your type of work and spell his or her name right. Give an accurate word count. Make certain you enclose a stamped self-addressed number 10 envelope.

The excuse for not being published most offered by the "unpublished writers" was "I just haven't gotten around to submitting my work yet." They seem to assume that once they submit, publication is automatic. One "not yet submitted" writer is already consulting with her writing group associates as to what kind of dress she should wear at her book signings. With that much confidence, she deserves to be published.

I will be 85 years old in March. Since my return to writing after a fifty-seven year hiatus I have written over one hundred columns, articles, or short stories for print magazines, ezines, or collections of stories in books.  Contact me at talespin@localnet.com.