Joseph Mills Hanson: Never have had any course on fiction writing other than in English courses at school. I have, however, taken magazines for writers and read books on the subject, and do still. I believe both to have been helpful in the early stages of writing for publication, and that they are still helpful. It is stimulating to read of the experience of others in one's own craft and to digest their suggestions and the suggestions of those who endeavor to be instructors in the art of narration, whether or not one attempts to follow their pronouncements.
E. E. Harriman: Never had a correspondence course or classroom training in writing. Read a book and spent two hours over one by ——. These helped me some in the elementary stages. Got most help in plot writing or making from a little sheet published by Willard Hawkins, Denver, in one page written by him. He concentrated the whole thing and made it as plain as a pikestaff. Epitomized it.
Nevil G. Henshaw: I've never taken any kind of course in writing, although at first I read a book or two on the subject. They helped in telling me what not to do. But, if I've learned anything at all, it is due almost entirely to the criticism and counsel of kindly editors.
Joseph Hergesheimer: Nothing—none!
Robert Hichens: I spent a year in a school of journalism in London. I haven't specially studied many books on writing, but I have studied many of the best prose writers.
Roy de S. Horn: I had a correspondence course in writing, but I never finished it. I finished twenty-eight of the forty lessons and then went at the game directly. But I still buy and study books on it whenever I can find a new one. And I frequently sit down and study a current story just as I was taught to do in the old course. I believe that both the course and the books were and are of incalculable assistance. The great thing to the beginner of a course is that they are short cuts. They give him other authors' experiences and deductions in concentrated form. They make him get a clear idea of what he is about. And most of all they tell him what not to write, thus saving him the trouble and delay of finding out by personal experiment.
Clyde B. Hough: I have had no course of any sort on writing fiction. Have read a few text-books and the greatest impression they made on me was that I must work hard, must expect many disappointments, but that I must never holler "'nough." They, the text-books, are agreed, and they're right, that the time to holler "'nough" is before you start at the game.
Emerson Hough: Thank God, no, I never did.
A. S. M. Hutchinson: (First and second questions) No.
Inez Haynes Irwin: I took writing courses in my early twenties for two years at Radcliffe College. I think these courses were an enormous help then, because it was so stimulating to be writing in a group. Also it developed my taste and strengthened my ambition. It helped me to acquire the habit of writing. Beyond these elementary stages, I think it was of no special assistance. And in the case of a girl like my niece, Phyllis Duganne, it would be, I am sure, utterly unnecessary. She grew up in a household in which there were always three writers and, when visitors came, sometimes six. She acquired her technique painlessly as artists' children learn to paint. She can not remember when she began to write and I am sure she has no memories of difficulties in learning to write. Her first short story was accepted when she was sixteen and her first novel was published before she was twenty-one. No course in writing could have helped her much.