Linda S. Fox
Aug 27, 2017 · 1 min read

Other women’s magazines had the ‘young intern’ programs — Glamour, for example. By the 1970’s, when I was that target age, I do remember many women’s mags with literature excerpts (I do remember reading Cosmo’s excerpts of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, Truman Capote’s Answered Prayers, and Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays), Redbook had some contemporary novels/excerpts, and short stories were regular features in many magazines. They were generally NOT vapid romances, celebrity tell-alls, or name-dropping quasi-ads for merchandise, which seem to be all that is left on the racks.

I doubt you could launch a magazine — male or female target audience — today with that sort of content. There just isn’t much original literature that reaches a wide audience. The American public reads, just not what the ‘experts’ think they should. Rather than try to wade through the obligatory Social Justice hectoring present in too many books, they retreat to formulaic novels, where, at least, they won’t be mocked, put down, or grimly lectured to.

[Yes, I do realize that I tend to end my sentences with prepositions — it’s a Cleveland thing, you wouldn’t understand]

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    Linda S. Fox

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