Jack Woodford (March 25, 1894 – May 1971)

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Jack Woodford, pseudonym of Josiah Pitts Woolfolk, (1894–1971) was a successful pulp novelist and non-fiction author of the 1930s and 1940s. He wrote unique books on writing and getting published. Most famously, Woodford authored Trial and Error which caused something of a scandal at the time of publication because of its no-holds-barred insights into the publishing industry. He wrote as Sappho Henderson BRITT; Howard Hogue KENNEDY; Gordon SAYRE; Jack WOODFORD; Jack WOOLFOLK.

Born Josiah Pitts Woolfolk, the pen name "Jack Woodford" was derived from the first name of a writer he admired (Jack Lait, a writer for Hearst Publications) and the county where his father was born (Woodford County, Kentucky).

Woodford grew up in Chicago when the dominant form of transportation was horse-drawn carriage. He was raised in well-to-do circumstances by his grandmother Annette (of Welsh stock) whom he called "Nettie". Nettie was a practicing member of Christian Science but was unable to bring Jack into the fold. Despite his general hatred of organized religion, Woodford joined the Freemasonry organization and remained a lifelong member.

His father was a doctor who started a private practice in Sioux City, Iowa, eventually moving it to Chicago. He later taught diagnosis at Rush Medical College, before dying at the age of forty-nine, likely from mercury poisoning. Calomel (mercurous chloride) was a popular medicine at the time and one the doctor himself used to excess. Woodford, always physically vibrant, thought of his father as a hypochondriac.

Woodford witnessed the Eastland disaster where the steamer ship rolled over in the Chicago River and killed 845 people. He gave a firsthand account to the Chicago newspaper the Herald-Examiner and described the event in Chapter 21 of his autobiography.

Among the many famous contemporaries Woodford befriended, the most notable are H. L. Mencken, writer/satirist James Branch Cabell, novelist Sherwood Anderson, composer George Antheil, and poet Ezra Pound. Woodford wrote a piece that was published in Pound’s early Exile magazine. He also accompanied Winston Churchill when the former Prime Minister visited New York City.

Woodford's only child from his marriage, Louella Woolfolk (who wrote under the pen name Louella Woodford) was also a published author who, at the age of 18, wrote a 273-page novel titled Maid Unafraid that was published in 1937 by Godwin.

Woodford founded Jack Woodford Press in the 1930s and the company's work was distributed by Citadel in the 1940s. The editors of the company in the 1940s were Allan Wilson and Aaron Moses (“Moe”) Shapiro.

Quotes by Woodford:

“Boy meets girl; girl gets boy into pickle; boy gets pickle into girl.”
“Characterization is an accident that flows out of action and dialogue.”
“Few human beings are proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention.”
“If you wish to write great literature you are very stupid to read my books, because I do not, cannot, and would not write great literature.”
“One of your first jobs, as you write for money, will be to get rid of your vocabulary.”
“Editors are the immemorial adversaries of writers, because most editors are editors because they wanted to be writers and failed, and they instinctively hate those who wanted to be writers and succeeded.”
“I got my favors the hard way. I found out what the dame most wanted, and either gave it to her or pretended I was going to give it to her, and that in all cases got action—always does, always will, for any man.”
“Money talks. And writes. And publishes. And reviews. But it can't read.”
“Constantly writer after writer would come to me in Hollywood to invite me into Communist activities and I would laugh at them and point out the utter inconsistency of a man making fifteen hundred dollars a week or more, doing next to nothing, going for a philosophy which would destroy just that and put them back where they were when the golden cornucopia splayed them.”

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Woodford