The American Fiction Guild

American Fiction Guild..: BULLETIN
250 Riverside Drive, New York City RIverside 9-5371

AMERICAN FICTION GUILD Bulletin December 1, 1935:

Norvell W. Page. Former newspaper man on copy desk, World-Telegram. Clicked in magazines, faster than most appearing in many pulps. A prodigious but careful producer, now devoting whole time to fiction. Writes Popular's popular Spider, doing a full book-length each month, besides numerous shorts and novelettes. Has held various Guild offices: president New York chapter, secretary AFG, and president AFG, 1934-35. Stickler for detail and accuracy. Talks of his "Spider" characters as though they were members of his family, or boon golfing-drinking companions.

Having run them through thirty book-lengths he should know them fairly well. Big house in Connecticut; big car in garage; big meals three times a day; big writer, weight 215. Ambition: to copy T.T. Flynn and Erle Stanley Gardner by gallivanting over U.S. in housekeeping trailer, meeting writers, visiting chapters, talking shop, finding vast new countries for his hero in the Spider, to save from "the menace" of wild dogs, wild men, Neanderthalers and other cataclysmic horrors. Good radio script writer...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

AMERICAN FICTION GUILD Bulletin June 1, 1936:

. . . Norvell W. Page, we understand, is interested in theatricals, playing the part of Simon Legree in Uncle Tom's Cabin. He has the beard, the whip, and the hound dog, and the show will open in Newtown, Connecticut as soon as ice forms on the rivers for Eliza. . . .

AMERICAN FICTION GUILD Bulletin March 1937:

Norvell Page dropped into Guild Headquarters on a visit from the swell farm he acquired up in Newtown, Conn. Sorry I didn't see him, but I understand he's lost weight and is down to two hundred now. Must be that hard work as a gentleman farmer is good as a reduction measure. Norv is back at the old tempo now and his name is once again popping up on covers of lots of mags. Best of luck, old-timer. The Guild owes you a lot for the work you did as N.Y. President and as National President. Let's see you once in a while at the luncheons, when you are in town.


WRITER'S REVIEW 34.01:

Norvell Page is now dictating his stories, turning out about 100,000 words a month.

Riverside Drive, address unknown.

WRITER'S REVIEW 34.04:

Norvell Page, the new president of the New York Chapter—American Fiction Guild, has lined up many good speakers for the weekly luncheons of the Guild held every Friday noon at one o'clock at Rosoff's Restaurant on 43rd Street near Times Square, New York City. Writers are invited whether or not they are members of the American Fiction Guild. Each week an editor or well-known writer will talk. Carson Mowre, Joseph Shaw, Fannie Hurst, Carl Happel, and Amita Fairgrieve are some of the more recent guests of honor who addressed meetings.

WRITER'S REVIEW 35.01:

. . . NORVELL W. PAGE sitting down to toy with GEORGE BRUCE'S electric typewriter and becoming so interested that he turned out a dozen pages of copy . . .

WRITER'S REVIEW 35.03:

Norvell Page is sprouting a Van Dyke beard and he insists that if it's destined to look like Lester Dent's he'll shave it off . . .

Ram Singh

WRITER'S REVIEW 35.05:

. . . Norvell W. Page, at some pulpster's cocktail party, deeply absorbed in a book . . .

WRITER'S REVIEW 35.07:

At Lurton Blassingame's stag party—Norvell Page and Lester Dent measuring their beards, Page winning by a hair . . .

WRITER'S REVIEW 35.08:

Norvell W. Page, whose bloodthirsty Spider novels would do justice to a Ghengis Khan, demonstrated his bloodlust the other day by accidentally killing a sparrow. . . .

Norvell's sister Natalie, around 1932

WRITER'S REVIEW 35.11:

. . . Norvell (Spider) Page is in Virginia visiting relatives, suh! . . .
WRITER'S 1936 YEAR BOOK:

Caption for attached photo: Norvell Page was a newspaperman and began playing on the side with freelance writing. Today he writes "The Spider" every month; a pulp-paper magazine of that name. His stories draw fan mail the way a movie star gets it. (Note: The beard is real.)

Pulp Jungle, The: Norvell Page was writing The Spider, for which he received five hundred dollars a month, but soon boosted it to six hundred dollars, then seven hundred dollars

NY World Telegram Newsroom, 1941

Norvell Page was that rarity, a newspaper man turned fiction writer. He worked on the New York World-Telegram as a rewrite man for several years, although he was originally from either South or North Carolina. I don't know what happened to Norvell Page. I heard that he and Ted Tinsley quit writing during the war and went to work for the government, but I have not heard of either in many years.

Volume 4 March 15th, 1935 Number 3

A PLAN TO END PLAGIARISM

Since the inauguration of its campaign against plagiarism, the American Fiction Guild has been dismayed to discover how much of it goes on, and how much of it, potentially, may never be detected. Every dollar paid to the literary thief by an unsuspecting publisher is a dollar taken away from an honest writer. Forcing a cessation of plagiarism therefore at once becomes of major importance to every writer, publisher and agent.

It is with this idea in mind that the Guild comes forward with a suggestion that it feels merits the wholehearted cooperation of all writers and publishers: The establishment of a bureau to catch plagiarism before publication and to create a clearing house of such information.

The Guild proposes to establish a central point to which publishers would be asked to send their magazines as fast as printed or even, if they desire, while still in galley sheets. Every word of every pulp magazine will be read as soon as received, and by one person. This is not a huge task for some experienced editor who will have no other work to do and whose experience will qualify him to spot plagiarism, parallelism or copyright violation immediately. He will be further assisted by a cross-indexing system which will make doubly sure of detecting such violations and which can be extended backward for as many years as publishers will supply files.

This editor will be without authority to act, this power being vested in a committee established for that duty and serving without pay, which in turn will act only when a conference between the committee, the publishers concerned and all possible interested parties indicates a ground for action Such action will be taken by the Guild attorney immediately and information, as far as possible, will be made immediately available to all publishers and editors. This will immediately raise two mighty obstacles for the plagiarist.

 He will know for a certainty that he will be caught, and that all publishers will know immediately all the facts—and only the facts!—thus definitely closing all markets to him. The plagiarist sufficiently skilled to hurdle these obstacles should have no trouble making an honest living as a bonafide writer! We have an obstacle of our own to putting this idea into practice. The editor reading all copies of all magazines must have a full-time job and be paid. Fees of the Guild membership cannot be stretched to cover this.

Despite the fact that the Guild feels this service would be of indefinitely greater financial value to publishers and editors, than to writers, the president has found many member-writers willing to make small weekly or monthly contributions to cover the expense. If publishers will give similar support, individual contri­butions need be very small to hire an excellent editor, furnish him with clerical help and prosecute offenders.

Regard the contributions as premiums on an insurance policy against plagiarism and you will put the matter in its true light.

One question will inevitably be asked: Why is it necessary to set up such a bureau when individual editors can read their competitors and so guard against plagiarism? The answer is simple: the individual editor already has all the work he can possibly handle and, furthermore, he could not hope to make such a complete survey of the field as could a full-time man.

If you believe that this suggestion is worth following, editors, publishers, writers, please communicate at once. Promise to contribute if you like, but send no money until advised to do so. Your promises will show us where we stand. If this plan meets with approval, and the many-sided cooperation it must have, the central reading bureau will be established as soon as is humanly possible.

A list of those cooperating will be published.

NORVELL W. PAGE

President

AMERICAN FICTION GUILD Bulletin ..:November 6, 1933:

Elected to the Board of Governors, in addition to heads of chapters who already belong to the Board: George A. McDonald, Peggy Gaddis, Norvell Page, Eustace L. Adams, Paul Chadwick, Eric Howard.