The Correspondence Novel

I wasn’t blacklisted at IBM,

they just damned me with faint praise

to prospective employers. They implied I

couldn’t hack it, when the reason I quit was

I refused to lower my standard to their level.

If you can write the great American novel

you don’t write instruction booklets.

I predicted what I’m doing now

ten years before it was possible.

Before the Internet. Before the worldwide web.

They should have listened to me. I was doing it

with self-published chapbooks, through the mail.

Writing thrilling 9d correspondence novels.

Exchanging work with David Zack, Blaster Al, and David Cole.

Monty Cantsin. A1 Waste Paper Company (Michael Leigh).

9 pence. From the French denier.