Short Stories of James Reay

When I was fourteen, I sent a short story to WILD WEST WEEKLY. I thought it was as good as what I had been reading in that magazine. They were not courteous enough to return a rejection. Then followed a period when I learned that publishers have plenty of rejection letters to disburse, as I kept right on submitting to every new magazine that hit the stands. Esquire must have several stuck away some place. Probably could not read my writing and did not know where to return the...
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When I was fourteen, I sent a short story to WILD WEST WEEKLY. I thought it was as good as what I had been reading in that magazine. They were not courteous enough to return a rejection. Then followed a period when I learned that publishers have plenty of rejection letters to disburse, as I kept right on submitting to every new magazine that hit the stands. Esquire must have several stuck away some place. Probably could not read my writing and did not know where to return the rejections. While sitting in a burro in the Fijian Islands, or in front of an Army typewriter, with no place to send them, I turned stories out wholesale. Moving around in the Pacific and later Europe I kept right after it, accumulating stacks of poorly written typed manuscripts. I probably wrote more than Ernie Pyle. Along with my metals and discharge they were stacked away, as I did not have time to write anything but checks and sign notes. Then came the day I gave it all up, retrieved one card board box from the attic, another from the garage and another from the trunk of my car, to find again only a few editors considering them worthy, which set me on the road to Mexico, where I lived, wrote and played tennis. Memories of being there are clear. My tennis ratings went up to five and a few editors needed something to pad their recently introduced literary inventions.

Somewhere along the way, trying to tell what happened there, these stories were born.