CINCINNATI -- Emma Gary Wallace, professional author, had more than a few notions about the business of writing.
With a resume that included essays in housekeeping and cooking magazines, and a popular Christmas story, "The New Neighbor," she was able and ready to share tips with readers of a new monthly magazine called Successful Writing.
"Writers waste a great deal of postage sending stuff around the country to impossible markets," she observed. "Don't carry coals to Newcastle or offer jewelry in a blacksmith shop. Every magazine has its own policy and makes a definite appeal to a certain clientele. Study these and take them into consideration when offering your wares for any market."
The year was 1921, and advice about writing was -- and remains -- a market itself.
The timeless cry for help as one makes the great leap from the desire to write to actual writing to published writing has inspired countless books, magazines, classes and websites. Successful Writing, now Writer's Digest, is one of the oldest players in the business. The magazine, based in Cincinnati at the corporate headquarters of F&W Publications, still enjoys a circulation of more than 100,000.
"I sincerely believe that we have something to offer a broad spectrum of writers at every stage of their development, from the novice to the veteran writer in every genre," Writer's Digest Editor Maria Schneider says.
Deconstructing an art
For anyone who wonders what the emerging writer has faced over the decades, the magazine's files -- preserved in bulky, bound volumes -- tell a dual history. Evolution is constant. Technologies from airplanes to computers, and historical events from the Great Depression to the sexual revolution, bring on new markets and genres. But at the heart of the game the riddle remains: How do you write, and write well? How do you get your writing noticed and sold?
Like the best epics, reading through the pages of Writer's Digest is less about finding the answer than enjoying the questions.
"It's like asking if we're any closer to the great mystery of how one paints a portrait or composes a symphony," says mystery writer Lawrence Block, who for years contributed a column to Writer's Digest. "Most of the arts certainly are extremely difficult, and there are always more people who want to do it than can do it."
