small daughters, a charming husband, and, as you will note from the postmark on this onvelope, live far from Now York City, which town Miss Aldrich-Packer knows and reports on far better than I.

"I had a brief acquaintance with Miss Aldrich several years ago at the start of my writing career, in which sho very kindly encouraged me. Perhaps my earlier books roflect her influence; that's something I'm not qualified to judge. At any rate, Miss Aldrich is a very capable writer and an intelligent girl.

"But I have not seen or corresponded with her for a considerable length of time to date, and her views and mino with respect to THE LADDER are entirely opposod. I'm all for you, believe it or not, for what you are trying to accomplish, and for the dignity and sincerity of your offort. And, may I please add, I did not even know you existed until early this year when some of my readers took the trouble to tell me about you. I not only didn't write those disparaging remarks in CAROL IN A THOUSAND CITIES, Miss Aldrich's new book, which satirizo the 1958 issues of THE LADDER; I couldn't have. The first issue I ever saw was dated June, 1960.

"Believe me, I don't know whether to laugh or ory about this mix-up, and no doubt Miss Aldrich doesn't either. She is probably as dismayed as I to find that some, at least, consider our fiction indistingui shablo. While I have respect for hor talent and achievement, she would agree with me that the two of us could hardly be more different, both temperamentally and in our attitudes toward Lesbians and Lesbianism.

"I can't speak for Miss Aldrich, but most of my own 'searing' adventures take place between my ears. I'm sorry my writing strikes so eminent a student and author as Dr. Foster as slick and dysenteric. If she's right, incidentally, my piggy bank should be a hell of a lot fuller than it is. I have never been psychoanalyzed, either subjectively or objectively.

"My stories are not meant as 'messages' for a waiting world. I live in a stucco house, and undress in front of my typewriter. It knows me so well by this time, it couldn't care loss.

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