READERS on Writers

From time to time some article, story or poem brings in a flood of approval or opposition from readers such as our LETTERS columns cannot contain. When this occurs we thought it might be interesting to group them together as a feature, READERS ON WRITERS. Such has been the case with Geraldine Jackson's long letter to the editor, printed in our January issue. A cross-section of the replies follows. Incidentally, Miss Jackson is a very real person, attending the current Midwinter Institute again, as she has for many years past.

Miss G. of Chicago writes: If the letter from Geraldine Jackson was really real, here's my pen. I neither write well and spell worse-but I'm so damn mad at her I don't care, I'm writing anyway. She doesn't like your poetrychildish-ha!-to write with deep feeling one must feel deep. I liked your story 'Come Back John.' I felt it deeply and I understand it well. She says this is not love-it's a childish need. I wish she would write an article and tell us what she calls love.

As for success stories-that may be nice, but a drowning man doesn't want a last meal. He wants a life preserver. Your paper is necessary for many people. She can stand and look down her nose at her brothers and sisters and deny them. I'll tell her a thing or two about wandering around in a terrifying fog. I'll tell her about kids who hang in bars... They're crazy mixed-up kids. They fly from one love to another and each broken heart is a real real broken heart. Yes, I know. I should. I was one of the mixed-up kids. Your magazine should be a light in the fog to them. They are the ones who need you and not Miss Snob.

Mr. R. of Miami writes: Brava, bravissima for Miss Geraldine Jackson for expressing so lucidly and succinctly what I have so long wanted to say. I have been reading ONE Magazine for more than five years now and not a few of the issues have caused me the most acute embarrassment. You have chosen a field of granite to plow in, and all of us owe you an eternally unpayable debt of gratitude for the way you have stuck to your guns against all odds. But all too often, as Miss Jackson remarks, you seem to be asking only that the most disreputable and inconsequential members of homosexual society be granted all the license they want to conduct themselves in a fashion which is thoroughly obnoxious to me and, I am sure, to others.

I have lived for some years in this city and from articles in ONE a reader would get the impression that we are being driven from pillar to post, Scourged in the streets and unable to walk abroad in safety. It just isn't so.

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