OUR CHATTER-BOX
When I started writing books for boys (this is Leo Edwards speaking) I was practically unknown in the story-writing world. Never having heard of me, boys didn’t know whether to buy my books or not. The titles, featuring Whispering Mummies and Purring Eggs, seemed kind of silly to a lot of young readers. But to-day hundreds of thousands of boys look forward to my new titles. If the books are slow in coming, a goodly portion of these hundreds of thousands of “fans” write and tell me about it. Also they jack me up if things aren’t so-so. And, happier for me, they pat me on the back (verbally) if they like my stuff. I never tire of reading these bully good letters. And I was tickled pink when my publisher told me that I could incorporate a few of these letters in a “Chatter-Box.” An experiment, the first “Chatter-Box” appeared in my sixteenth book. And so popular has this department become (it is made up almost wholly of letters, poems and miscellaneous contributions from boys and girls who read my books) that now I have been given the pleasing job of supplying my earlier books with brief “Chatter-Boxes.” Writers of accepted poems, built around the characters in my books, or featuring some boyish interest, win prizes. And, of course, it is pleasing to other boys to see their letters in print. If you have written me a letter I may have used it in another “Chatter-Box.” Or if you are contemplating a letter, why not write it to-day? It may be just the letter I need for one of the big “Chatter-Boxes” in my new books. It may even give me an idea, for my books, which will bring millions of added laughs into the world.