editoradmin
Note to Non-NAPA Readers
This is a shop-talk issue. Because the internal struggles of the NAPA could not be of any interest to you, no attempt has been made to make the discussion comprehensible to outsiders. The message below is for you, too, however.
Merry Christmas
to
Friends, Enemies, Phreds, Liddles, and Dumb Printers Everywhere
Our Fifth Convention
ONCE UPON A TIME I heard, or read, that there are four cities in the United States: New York, San Francisco, Washington, and all the rest are Cleveland. Calumny or simple truth – it makes little difference. A NAPA convention makes any place a glorious place, and the Cleveland convention was one of our finest.
The evening before the opening day has, it seems to me, become one of the most enjoyable social functions of the convention. It is then that everyone is checking to see if friends and acquaintances have arrived and to learn which are not expected to make it this year. It is then that one will meet people familiar in name but personally unknown.
The air is filled with such exclamations as: “He’s nothing like I’d imagined him,” and “Isn’t he just like you thought he’d be?” and “So you’re Joe Hillis!” This matching of names and faces is an annual pleasure. There are always a few people present whom one has been wanting to meet for years. With some you must immediately draw aside to question or to argue about their published views or simply to express your admiration for their writing or printing.
There are always a few new members to meet, and we are always aware of the possibility that each new one may have much of the future of aj and the NAPA in his hands. Just as in baseball, a hot rookie can revitalize a team or an organization. After all, at some conventions such people as Harold Segal, Alf and Ralph Babcock, Vic and Rowena, and even Tony Moitoret appeared as new members.
The number of new members each year is of minor importance, it is their quality that really matters. It is not obvious whether enough new, young, high quality members are being obtained to insure NAPA’s survival. But Matt Kelsey and now Vicki Wheeler are certainly grounds for optimism.
We found this year’s tribute to Russ Paxton (a plaque and $500) to be a very fitting climax to the convention. Russ’s efforts are widely appreciated but probably most by those who have served a hitch as editor of the National Amateur during the years that Russ has been its printer. And that’s been all of the recent years. In nominating Harold Segal for president, I claimed that he was a man without an enemy in the organization. That’s undoubtedly true for Russ Paxton as well. The organization owes much to Russ, and it is gratifying that this recognition was given while Russ could, in turn, appreciate it.
I do hope that the next time I go to Ohio I can remember that liquor is available only in state operated stores that are few and far between and that observe banker’s hours. The last time I had bought liquor in Ohio was in 1942. At that time liquor was rationed, and for some inexplicable reason, if you bought a bottle of bourbon, you had also to buy a bottle of cheap gin. Oh well. Unlike Segal and Paxton, I do have enemies, but fortunately, I also have some friends who will, in a pinch, share a bottle.
The last two conventions have featured vigorous but fairly conducted floor battles. This convention had several.
After one session’s floor battle, a new member said to me, “It’s nice that the group can have such vigorous battles without anger or real animosity.”
In all fairness, I could only say, “Don’t you believe it. Plenty of hard feelings develop. Some people get upset at any strife, many get upset when they lose.”
In my opinion it cannot be expected that a group of such diverse, active, vain, and opinionated people will be able to agree on all matters. The very fact that someone is interested and active in aj is a sign that he is likely to be a person with strong views and one who is willing to go to a lot of trouble to make these views known. The passive people are watching TV instead of kicking a press. Not regrettably is it possible to argue and contend on the convention floor without bruising a few feelings.
I firmly maintain that two intelligent people given the same set of facts can disagree on both their interpretation and implications. A third person is likely to disagree with both of them. They should be able to disagree without anger or hurt feelings, but that depends upon the temperament of the people involved and may not be possible.
One thing sure, you cannot impugn someone’s motives or his character and expect him not to take offense. You can shout in anger and expect to be forgiven, but when you have set your insult in type and printed it, we all know that there was time for reconsideration and reflection and that the insult is studied, deliberate, and intentional.
I do not worry about the effects of controversy on the NAPA as many people do, for I am by no means sure that controversy, even heated controversy, is bad for the organization. I believe a cursory look at NAPA’s history will show that there was increased interest and activity during periods of controversy. (And such periods are not rare.) We have certainly had indications during the past year that activity grows with dissension. (If for no other reason than everyone trying to get the last word.) Harmony and peace are wonderful, but there’s nothing like the good old adrenaline to stir us to action.
What Are We Fighting About?
THE CURRENT LAUREATE contest rules are defined by Article XII of our constitution plus the vote of the Cleveland convention which ratified the 1973-1974 Executive Judges’ ruling that “publishers and/or printers also may enter material they have published for member authors.” (NA Vol. 97, No. 1.) Assuming that at least one of the other current Executive Judges believes, as I do, that the convention is our governing body and supreme court, this situation will prevail at least until the next convention.
The proposed amendment to be voted on in Philadelphia would revise our rules. It requires the Bureau of Critics to make entries, permits publishers to do so, and permits the contestant to enter for himself.
After the floor battle on 5 July at Cleveland on the proposed amendment, Glenn Engebretsen and I took it upon ourselves to discuss our differences to determine whether we could find some compromise. Now, understanding that we speak for no one but ourselves (or, at least that is true of me), we determined that we disagree on the following points that are included in the amendment:
(1) The contestant is to be informed that an entry has been made on his behalf.
(2) The contestant can withdraw his entry if he wishes.
I believe these points should be included in the laureate rules and Glenn believes they should not. Or, at least, he believes the first statement should not be included, and that makes the second almost academic since the contestant cannot very well withdraw if he doesn’t know his material has been entered.
My understanding of Glenn’s argument is that there are three reasons why he does not think the contestant should be informed that his material has been entered in a laureate contest:
(1) Publishers derive pleasure from having their authors surprised at winning laureate honors.
(2) Very few people would wish to withdraw and therefore we would be unduly complicating the laureate procedures to take care of rare cases.
(3) A losing contestant may suffer needless disappointment when his hopes are raised by the knowledge that his material has been entered.
Of these, only number one seems to me to have any validity. It’s hard to argue about how someone gets his kicks. As far as the third statement is concerned, I cannot imagine any writer, amateur or professional, who can survive if he is so thin skinned as to suffer trauma from failing to win a writing contest. Surely, except for the few of us who run a vanity press, the norm is rejection. All writers, from sad experience, learn to cope with rejection. If you are that delicate, take up flower arranging or truck driving instead of writing.
I am even more baffled by the second argument. The number of contestants is never large, so I cannot see that sending a card to each contestant is a hardship on the publisher or on the Bureau of Critics who enter his material. The change to calendar year for the laureates has relaxed the rush in the procedure and there is now plenty of time to carry out notification of entry.
I have two reasons for believing that notification and the right to withdraw should be included in the rules:
(1) No one should be forced to enter any contest.
(2) There must be some method to prevent and correct wrongly categorized, misattributed, and illegal entries.
It is not clear to me why anyone should be opposed to the laureate contests or be opposed to competing in them. Yet no convention discussion of the contests has failed to elicit such sentiments from a few members of the group. Others have written that they believe the contests should be abolished and that they do not wish to participate. I can see no reason why people who do not wish to participate should have to do so. The only way they could be certain of staying out of the contests if notification and withdrawal rights were not included would be inactivity.
We have had, under our present system, entries wind up in categories deemed by their creators to be incorrect. I know of no test by which fiction and miscellaneous prose can be separated. Even miscellaneous prose and history of aj have been confused in past entries.
Even more serious is the possibility of misattribution. For example, Bill Boys might cut a lino for a Boxwooder and have this lino win the art laureate. In fact, he did so. Suppose there were no notification requirement and I failed to mention in the issue that Bill was the artist. I might well win the art laureate. (In fact, if I ever win the art laureate, it will have to be through some such error.)
But let us go one step further. Suppose the person who cut the lino was not a NAPA member. Now we may have an illegal entry. It is of no use to say that I can refuse to accept the award. Some artist would have been cheated by our procedure from rightfully winning the award that I must refuse. There are many other illegal entry possibilities. I might have a cover commercially designed and offset printed and win a laureate. I might win a printing award for a journal printed by someone else.
I was bemused by the comments on the floor to the effect that the printer or publisher should keep things straight by identifying the printer or the artist because this is not required at all. The only identification required in a journal is a title, date or number, and publisher. It seems utterly pointless to say what a publisher could do.
Compromise is certainly a desirable way to settle differences of opinion, but when an issue comes down to a “yes” on one side and a “no” on the other, I can see no method of compromising. There is no middle ground that makes sense. We can’t very well compromise to a “maybe” or to a “maybe not.”
If I understood Glenn correctly, he said he could not agree to an amendment that included notification.
For the reasons given above, I cannot agree to an amendment that does not include notification and the right of withdrawal.
Although I have tried to be reasonable, I must bluntly say that I cannot, for the life of me, see why anyone would oppose notification.
I can tell you, in spite of floor discussions and journal articles, that none of the following is germane: Freedom of the press, eastern inhospitality, virginity, insults to past or present presidents, Verle Heljeson, copyright laws, Vic Moitoret, motherhood, keeping off the grass, and the real or imaginary rights of publishers.
If you favor permitting other than the creator having a right to make laureate entries, I recommend that you support and vote for this amendment. – July 1975
Colophon
Hand set in Deepdene. Display type is Flash; Christmas greeting is Goudy Text. The NAPA emblem (wreath but no dates) may be used for one year in recognition for winning the Editing Laureate. While we are bragging, we will add that the Boxwooder also won the Printing Laureate for 1974. Published by Jake Warner and 460 copies printed by him on a 10×15 C&P at the Boxwood Press, Greenbelt, Maryland 20770.