Blood ‘n’ Thunder Presents, #2: The Penny-a-Word Brigade

Return with us to those halcyon days of yesteryear, when writers of pulp fiction made a precarious living: sweating out plot details, trying to make their hackneyed characters seem fresh, working insane hours, often typing until their fingers bled. And usually for just a penny a word.  In this 120,000-word collection of articles from vintage writer’s magazines, those journeymen scribes explain how—and why—they endeavored to do it.

Represented in these pages are pulp fiction’s leading lights: Walter B. Gibson, Lester Dent, Norvell Page, H. Bedford-Jones, Erle Stanley Gardner, Frank Gruber, Frederick C. Davis, and many more. Additionally, there are how-to articles by some of the field’s top editors, including Black Mask‘s Joseph “Cap” Shaw and Adventure‘s Arthur Sullivant Hoffman. The tips they presented to aspiring fiction writers are, for the most part, still applicable today. And they make fascinating reading, bringing back to life a long-gone phase of American popular culture. You don’t have to be a wordsmith yourself to appreciate the essays in this book; The Penny-a-Word Brigade vividly puts the pulp era in its proper historical context and therefore is a must-read for students of American popular culture.

PURCHASE PRICE INCLUDES SHIPPING AND HANDLING TO DOMESTIC BUYERS. INTERNATIONAL BUYERS MUST INQUIRE FOR SHIPPING RATES BEFORE PLACING ORDERS.