What a pleasure it is to see, in the midst of disheartening news about the low number of women writers whose writing appears in major national periodicals, that the Atlantic is at least at the top of the list.
It’s a particular pleasure to me because the Atlantic—then called the Atlantic Monthly—gave me a boost when I started my life as a writer.
A favorable review of my first collection of short stories, and publication of two stories I was writing then, was the most exciting thing that could happen to me during the two years after I graduated from college.
I was not yet grown-up enough to be able to express my thanks adequately to the editors; it is late, now, to be thanking them since they are no longer around.
But on behalf of all the women writers who struggle, as we do, to find acceptance in the closed world of East Coast literary life, I want to thank them now, and to encourage all of you who are looking for a little hope in this bleak world to write and thank them as well—and maybe send them something they might publish.
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