Since we all have this kind of song in us, here’s mine! The funny part is that I never experienced this “full monty” directly or fully as a wannabe magazine writer. (Thanks, Victoria Valentine, for letting me write for The Crisis! Thanks, Marcus Reeves, for connecting me with The Source‘s Akiba Solomon, who connected me with E. Assata Wright! And thanks to Richard Prince, who connected me with Lyne Pitts at The Root!) But knowing it existed, even if out of my grasp for one reason or another, made me happy:

Man, the good ol’ days…a magazine feature article at least 10,000 words long (and was at least .50 a word!) that took at least two drafts and six months to do….sitting for days with an editor who was more talented than you but believed in the cause so he/she sat with you and co-wrote, without even thinking of credit, a much-better third/fourth draft (known in magazine world as “editing”)….a serious illustration on the left, opposite the opening text….listed in the Table of Contents and, if you were a star, a cover line (and if you were a superstar, an added byline)…..on every newsstand in the country…knowing you were the public envy of some other writer somewhere….Knowing for somebody, somewhere what you wrote was their favorite article and he/she/they would keep that issue for 20 years, too emotionally attached to it to throw it away……*sniff* 🙂