Magazines 1970-1979

  GETTING STARTED

The 1970s saw my career skyrocket. From the 14-year-old publisher, editor, and writer (with Tom Sinclair, Christian Doherty, and Alan Saly) of such fiction/non-fiction mimeographed publications as Strange & Unknown, Mystery Magazine, The Warthog Reader, and The Edgar Rice Burroughs Magazine, I was soon a freelance writer for my college newspaper and such weekly newspapers  as The West Sider, The East Side Express, and The Chelsea Clinton News In July of 1978, just months after I graduated, my mother's cousin, James Kotsilibas-Davis (known as "Baby Jim" to the family) called me about a job at Firehouse magazine. "What's that?" I asked. "A poetry magazine?" No, it was about firemen (subsequently referred to as "firefighters," since women were on the job now, too). Jimmy's boss was Bartle Bull, a rich man in suspenders who played at publisher the way some people played at golf: with an intense interest in the subject at hand for about 15 minutes. He hired me, on Jimmy's say-so, and although Bartle was infuriating he – and Jimmy – taught me a lot about terseness in writing and how to turn badly written pieces into tightly packed sandwiches that, although not delectable, were at least edible.