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Pulp Writer: Twenty Years in the American Grub Street

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Laurie Powers, editor of "Pulp Writer: Twenty Years In The American Grub Street", had for many years lost contact with the Powers side of her family. What she found upon reuniting with them while researching a thesis she was working on is a gold mine of Americana. A true treasure in the memoir of her grandfather Paul Powers, a writer of pulp westerns way back in the 1920's, 30's and 40's.

Bookended by two wonderful and interesting essays by Ms. Powers describing the family history she learned and her course of researching and a follow up on Paul Powers after the writing ceased to exist, you will find Paul Powers' memoir of his work and the times of the real pulp fiction writer. It is one of the most interesting and exciting memoirs I have ever read.

Although the son of a prominent Doctor, Paul Powers had writing in his blood. He could knock off an entertaining and adventurous 12,000 word read for fans of his popular characters like "Sonny Tabor" and "Kid Wolf" in a week.
He writes of trying to break into the business, writing 2 line jokes for various magazines, all the rejection slips on his stories and then finally breaking into the pulp business. He touches on his very nomadic personal life a bit- giving us the feel of the western towns of the early 20th century - but mostly, the reader will get a real feel for the life led by those of wrote for the pulp magazines, riding the highs and lows from pauper to king of the wild west stories, and back again. Power's tales are enthralling as they are funny, often told in a much self-deprecating manor.Also, between, Paul's memoirs and Laurie's research the business of pulp back in the days is a very detailed eye opener as well.

"Pulp Writer" will appeal to and entertain fans of the pulp western genre,is an educational read for history buffs, as well as writers researching their own family history and would certainly be an inspiration to anyone writing their own memoir. How fortunate we are that Mr. Powers wrote down for us this very important part of history that he was such a big part of, one that was so popular that even during the depression, fans still plunked down their precious pennies to read all the adventures. And we are fortunate as well, that Laurie Powers had it published for us to savor.

A highly recommended read. One that will not only keep your interest throughout, but may peak your curiosity so much that you may start looking up some of those old stories. So maybe we can hope for a companion piece to this book with some reprinted stories by Mr. Powers!

Happy Trails and Enjoy the Read....Laurie Shirley

1/18/12 update - hey pards - guess what I found free on kindle - Kid Wolf of Texas A Western Story - One of Powers' popular characters - a fun read!

An excellent book. The true background of a man who made big bucks writing for pulp magazines when they were a favorite form of reading for millions of people. This man had published over 450 stories in the 15 years from 1928 through 1943. His wanderings and commentary are exceptional reading for anyone who is interested in this time period.

Among all the famous writers who started in the pulp era, the name Paul S. Powers is one that is not well known. This is likely because most of the stories he wrote for Wild West Weekly (and others) were published under pseudonyms and house names. Also because his one novel, Doc Dillahay (also known as Six-Gun Doctor), was not a big seller, and it is a rare author who achieves fame and fortune by writing only short works -- short stories are easily forgotten, whereas novels last much longer in the memory.

Pulp Writer: Twenty Years in the American Grub Street is Paul Powers's memoir of his years in the pulp machine, producing thousands of words a week, primarily for publisher Street & Smith's cadre of genre magazines, and most recognizably under the name "Ward Stevens." His most popular characters were Sonny Tabor and Kid Wolf, and Tabor's adventures were even adapted for a short time on radio.

Equally as interesting is the history behind the publication of Pulp Writer. Written around 1943, Powers tried to get it published but was rejected. He then placed it in a trunk where it stayed until his granddaughter Laurie Powers, who had done her thesis on Doc Dillahay, began asking family members for information about her grandfather. Amazingly enough, one relative had boxes of Powers's old papers, including this manuscript.

She tells this story in the introduction of Pulp Writer, and she also uses the other papers to piece together some facts about the remainder of her grandfather's life after the writing of the memoir. Altogether, this gives a much fuller picture of the life of a very interesting (and productive -- it is estimated he wrote over ten million words in twenty years) writer whose name is little-known even among pulp-era aficianados.

And Powers is not shy about revealing how he succeeded during this era. Because of his persistence (he started out writing short, two-line jokes), and his ability to gear his stories to their markets, he states that the Depression hardly affected his income. Powers also goes into the process of getting published, working with editors, and how important it is to be flexible in a constantly changing marketplace. This is information straight from the man who used it, making Pulp Writer: Twenty Years in the American Grub Street vital for anyone interested in being a published writer, or just interested in the process.

Powers writes his story just like you'd expect a pulp writer to: smoothly and with very little dressing. His plain, clear language makes it easy to go right along with him as he tells his tales of writing and publishing and struggling for the next paycheck while trying to make ends meet with a family depending on him. It's a really great read, and one of the best books I've read all year.

And after you read about Powers's life, make sure to pick up some of his fiction. A collection of four Sonny Tabor novellas called Desert Justice was reprinted in 2005 by Leisure Books as an affordable paperback. Others are available in hardcover and large-print formats, and they're a lot of fun: filled with action and engaging characters, especially Tabor himself. In addition, they allow the modern reader to essentially go back in time, if not to the real Wild West, at least to the period when they brought a lot of joy to readers looking for an escape during a rough period.

Written during the early 1940s and discovered by his granddaughter 55+ years later, "Pulp Writer" is the memoir of Paul Powers, who found success as the creator of numerous western heroes during the 1930s, the heyday of pulp fiction weeklies. A high school and art school drop-out, he got his start as a professional writer submitting jokes to newspapers, and in time learned to master the short fiction formulas that would put him in demand by one of the most popular of the story magazines, "Wild West Weekly."

His story is often poignant. Son of a small-town doctor in Kansas, he is something of a dreamer, his aspirations to be a "writer" considered elitist by the rest of the town. More than a little naive and still very young when he makes a break for freedom, he is self-taught in the ways of the world. He quits a brief job as a bellboy in a hotel when he learns that some guests expect the services of prostitutes. There's also some irony. While escaping the parochial world of his upbringing, he finds praise and appreciation from the likes of those he left behind, young men who had their yearning for adventure fulfilled in the shoot-em-up stories Powers spun from his typewriter.

Laurie Powers' account of her discovery of her grandfather's career, his papers, and this unpublished manuscript, provide a fascinating story of its own. She also shares her discovery of the largely forgotten world of pulp publications and the massive audience of readers who consumed them. Her book brings back to life an era - the Great Depression - that has been remembered in a lot of other ways. For anyone interested in popular culture, this is a rewarding read.

"Toward the bottom of the container I found a manila envelope ... I opened it. PULP WRITER: TWENTY YEARS IN THE AMERICAN GRUB STREET. I looked through it quickly ... I clutched it, disbelieving ... I'd found the lost life of my grandfather." - Laurie Powers

PULP WRITER is, above all, a journal of discovery - discovery by Laurie Powers that her dimly and ill-remembered paternal grandfather, Paul Powers, had a successful career as a western pulp fiction author during the 1930s and early 1940s, and the discovery by Paul himself of that uncertain road that sometimes leads writers to a hard-won success.

The core of the text, pages 55 to 221, is Paul's reminiscences, written around 1943, of his evolution as a writer, first as a contributor of jokes to newspapers and national magazines, then, as his skills matured, as a creator of short stories and novelettes for pulp magazines dedicated to stories of the Old West, principally "Wild West Weekly" (WWW) published by Street & Smith, until demand for such fizzled out at the end of World War II and teenagers switched to comic books. Indeed, the quality of Paul's professional and personal life deteriorated after 1943. He died an alcoholic in 1971, disappointed and financially strapped.

Paul's narrative is buttressed at both ends by granddaughter Laurie. Up front, she gives a brief history of pulp magazines as a genre, her grandfather's place within it, and her investigations into his writing career, which produced not only the single novel of which she'd previously been aware, Doc Dillahay (subsequently re-issued with the title Six-gun doctor; (A Bantam book), but more than 440 stories for WWW alone comprising an output of an estimated 10 million words. The key to this amazing discovery was the realization that Paul had written under several pen names, and his cowboy heroes included the likes of Sonny Tabor, Kid Wolf, and Johnny Forty-five. She ends the volume with the chapter "Life after the Pulps", in which she summarizes Paul's relatively unhappy existence after the demise of the pulps until his own death.

Paul's memories are almost exclusively of his development as a writer and his relationship with his distant editors. The other major events of his life are barely mentioned. Indeed, his first marriage is given short shrift on page 116 - "So I got married and brought a wife back with me to Kansas" - as well as his divorce from the woman, on page 156 - "I had domestic troubles that quickly ended in divorce" - and his subsequent second marriage, on page 170, mentioned somewhat more romantically:

"In Arizona I had found some romance of my own, and that summer I married a Tucson girl, the one who will still be with me, I hope, when the last story is written and the dust cover is dropped over the old typewriter." (She was.)

In a sense, PULP WRITER is rather esoteric. It's most likely to be relished, perhaps, by lovers of literary fiction, and especially anyone who enjoys the art of stringing written words together for whatever reason, be it business or pleasure. The illiterate will be bored to tears. But for those who read this engaging volume, there are observational nuggets to be found.

Paul relates a letter to WWW by a reader from Ohio, who remonstrates, "Keep the gals out of your magazine - they only spoil things." Well said!

I grew up with comic books, and my generation now bewails young people's preoccupation with computer games and social networking websites. But, in 1943, Powers writes, "The 'comic books'... have made inroads, especially among the youngsters of teen age who used to have enough mental energy to read, at least."

And finally:

"Writers simply don't like to be told of (their) brainchild's faults. When they say they do, they lie ... Not for nothing are critics despised people!" (After nearly 1000 reviews, I'm most certainly despicable.)

Laurie Powers is responsible for bringing PULP WRITER to print. It was a labor of love, and honor is due.

Ok, first off, why isn't this book on the Amazon Kindle?!?! This deserves to be an e-book!! Wake up publishers! If you fail to adopt to the new medium, many of these books will disappear just like pulp did!

Ok, enough of my rant, now onto to the book. This is a great insightful book about pulp writer, Paul S. Powers. A great guy who lived a life almost as adventurous as the pulp he wrote.

Also, got me interested in the western pulps that he wrote. Fascinating book about a golden era of writing and writers.

Now it needs to be published to the Kindle as well. Paper is so dead! :)