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| L. Ron Hubbard, Pulp Days |
L. Ron Hubbard the Fiction Writer
Hubbard the Screenwriter and "The Spider Returns", with Norvell Page
Joel Frieman told me at one point that he had found a check to Norvell for his work on the film, verifying his part in the first one. I believe Hubbard is directly credited with this second one by Warner Bros.
Hubbard the New York Years
..."following the sale of two high adventures and a mystery, he set out for that mecca which has always beckoned writers, New York City. He arrived in the spring of 1935 to join a fairly legendary circle of authors, including Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lester "Doc Savage" Dent and Norvell "The Spider" Page. Their primary vehicle was the equally legendary pulps. So called for the pulpwood stock on which they were printed and generally appearing monthly, these fiercely competitive magazines were easily the most popular publication of their day.
"As a matter of fact, with some thirty million regular readers — a full quarter of the American population — only television would finally rival the pulps in terms of sheer appeal. But make no mistake about it, if the pulps were unashamedly popular, they were by no means pedestrian."
From "Bare-Faced Messiah"
Hubbard was a member of the American Fiction Guild when Norvell was one of the officers: (Norvell and his wife, Audrey, were also remembered at the Algonquin Round Table, I believe by Nelson Bond, a writer, there at the time. My Grandmother remembered both Rosoff's and the Algonquin.)
"...Gruber took Ron along to Rosoff's restaurant on 43rd Street, where members of the American Fiction Guild met for lunch every Friday.
Most of the successful pulp writers in New York were members of the Guild and most of them gathered at Rosoff's at lunchtime on Fridays. They were names familiar to millions of pulp readers: Lester Dent, creator of Doc Savage; George Bruce, acknowledged ace of battle-in-the-air yarns; Norvell Page, who was said to earn $500 a month for his stories in the Spider; and Theodore Tinsley, a regular contributor to Black Mask.
"President of the Guild was Arthur J. Burks, who had been dubbed 'King of the Pulps' in a New Yorker profile and quoted as saying that any pulp writer who did not make at least $400 a month was not worth his salt. It was a remark that was to cause him considerable embarrassment, for it was common knowledge in the Guild that Burks never earned that much, despite turning out around two hundred thousand words every month.
"Ron was not the kind of young man to be overawed by such illustrious company and he walked into the Guild lunch at Rosoff's as if he was quite as famous and successful as any man present. He was also a good deal younger than most of the members, but acted as if he had seen and done more than any of them. By the end of the lunch, he was confidently presiding over one end of the table, holding the attention of everyone within earshot with an enthralling blow-by-blow account of his expedition to explore pirate strongholds of the Spanish Main.
"It was accepted, at the American Fiction Guild lunches, that members might be inclined to blur the distinction between fact and fiction. What mattered more than strict adherence to literal truth was that the stories should be entertaining, and on that score young Hubbard could not be faulted. He was a natural story-teller, able to set the scene quickly and evocatively, describe the action in rich detail, recount credible dialogue and interject humour with an acute sense of timing. Arthur Burks was happy to welcome him as a new member of the Guild, after he had paid his $10 membership fee, of course."
Literary correspondence of Hubbard
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