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HOTEL TEVERE
ROOM 48
SAN FRANCISCO 11.
Wed. Nov. 9, 1959

letter to my sister in Indianapolis

Dear Sally (Green):

Just a brief letter to let you know what's happening. I have lined up a Xmas job at the Emporium, the largest dept. store here as a salesman in the book dept. That along with what I'm making at the Bagel Shop should give me $100 a week for a brief period which should help me finally catch up financially. I plan to save enough of it for emergencies and invest it in things I need like clothes and other necessities. After living on an average of $30 a week and less for three years it will be nice to have a little money, if only for a brief time. 

Budd Schulberg was in town again a few weeks ago and offered me a job on a newspaper his brother owns in Arizona. It was an awfully nice gesture on his part but I turned it down. I am just beginning to start and find myself and I think I can make it alright here, and besides I am growing very fond of this town, although I was in love with it before I ever came here. A friend took a picture of Budd and myself and if it comes out I'll send you a copy. (actually it was a guy who pretended to be Schulberg- Mark Green, 1974)

You once asked me what I was writing. Well, I've written about 50 poems in the last few years, but most of them aren't too good, I am just developing myself now, but I am enclosing what I would call a "journalistic word piece" on the San Francisco scene. It took me about two years to write this little thing of only 1100 words because I was too involved in the beach and the main hurdle I had was trying to interpret the beach in terms outsiders would comprehend. I don't know how well I've succeeded but I am interested in your reaction. I've sent it off a few places and am waiting for replies now. A girl friend of Allen Ginsberg who wrote Howl suggested that if I get rejections I send it to him, because she thinks he will like it, and perhaps he can place it for me because he had a problem getting Howl published at first because it was controversial and I feel I might run into the same problem. In any event, I am also going to investigate printing costs and small publishers here. Even if it's gets printed somewhere I would like to get out my own limited edition with a couple illustrations and a foreward [[foreword]]by a friend of mine Tom Albright, former Chronicle art and music critic, because I think he would write a good introduction, and perhaps I could make a little money off it. 

I've quered the Village Voice in N.Y. along with another friend who knows the publisher about doing a column [[crossed out]] from the Coast called "West Coast Beat" covering  [[crossed out]] activities here. I don't know what their reply will be, but it would be a good deal if they o.k. it, prestige wise [[crossed out]] anyway. Cartoonist Jules Feiffer, "Sick, Sick, Sick" does his home column from there; Norman Mailer is a contributor and so is  Nat Hentoff, Jazz critic, and a column appearing in it would get my name known in the East Coast. We could also push circulation and advertising out here. 

(over)

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-07-31 11:47:02 Unclear what the numbers are after the written "Mark Green" Appears to be a notation - 1974