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November 2004

ASJA Then and Now

By Lisa Collier Cool

This year marks ASJA's 56th birthday -- and amazingly, two of its original founding members are still with us to celebrate. Murray Teigh Bloom says it all started in 1948, when he and two other writers decided it was the perfect time to launch a group for magazine writers.

"It was the great period of popular magazines like Collier's, The Saturday Evening Post and Liberty, and with such an enormous marketplace, some freelancers were making incomes that were equivalent to $175,000 to $200,000 in today's dollars."

The trio agreed on a simple plan: Each of them would invite two writers whose bylines they recognized to a meeting in New York City the following week. The guests were then asked to bring other successful journalists to the next gathering. Networking paid off -- and the number of prospective members quickly swelled. One was Norman Lobsenz, then a young freelancer who had just hit the big-time with sales to This Week and Coronet.

"I was very excited to be with other magazine writers and learn how things worked in the big city," says Norman.

Later that year, Murray, Norman, and other freelancers officially formed the Society of Magazine Writers (ASJA's former name). From the start, it had two key features that members today will recognize: PayCheck and the Warning List. While this information wasn't written down at first, says Murray, "we'd share it informally at the meetings, so everyone had a pretty good idea of what pay range to expect at each magazine, and which editors were bad guys to work with or didn't pay on time."

Until earlier this year, Murray served as a trustee for the Writers Emergency Assistance Fund; he was also ASJA's 10th president in the late 1950s. "By then, we were a growing force, and had become pretty effective in getting members' gripes resolved." That's been a lifelong mission for 88-year-old Murray, who has been the chair of our group's editor-writer liaison committee for the past 25 years, generously sharing his wisdom with any member who called him with a problem. Several months ago, our group expanded its resources in this area with our new Grievance Committee, which offers a combination of self-help materials on the Web site and advocacy on behalf of members who have been wronged by publishers. (E-mail them at grievance@asja.org.)

Norman, 85, is also a past ASJA president and oversaw a search for a new executive director in 1965. Then recently widowed, he was so taken with the charms of Dorothea Shotenoff, the candidate he selected, that he married her five years later. To date, he's written more than 20 books, the most recent of which was published in 2001, and at least 1,000 articles for virtually every national magazine -- accomplishments that were recognized with ASJA's 1993 Career Achievement Award, an honor that he shares with Murray, the 1995 winner.

Both men say that a lot has changed since they founded ASJA -- and they're not just talking about the Internet. "When I read the newsletter, I see that freelancers need a business plan, something called a platform, and even 'goal buddies' to get ahead," says Norman, who recently retired. "It wasn't like that in the 1950s or even the 1990s -- when writing was fun." Those thoughts inspired him to volunteer to write an article called "The Good Old Days" for a future issue of The ASJA Monthly.

Murray, who has written eight books, including a bestseller called The Trouble With Lawyers, as well as an off-Broadway play and numerous articles, agrees that times have gotten more challenging. "I really admire today's members because it's a much trickier market than it was in my day. So anyone who can survive -- and thrive -- deserves all compliments. But at the same time, it's still a great life: Most of us aren't the kind of people who would fit into an office job, and we're very lucky to live in a country where we have the opportunity to be freelance writers -- and get paid for it."

LISA COLLIER COOL of Pelham, New York, is president of ASJA. E-mail the president through www.asja.org/contact.php.