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to be a very difficult trade to combine with writing. The difficulties are simple, but insurmountable: when you are working, the hours are too long to leave any time for writing. The pay is so low you can hardly support a family on it anyway. And when you want to lay off for a while to write, you forfeit your seniority. Then when you try to go back to work, you find - as I have just found - that there isn't a railroad job open in the whole state of California. The trick would be to get a seasonal trade - or else one which a man can move in and out of under his own steam, like the building trades. Too bad I didn't know all these details ten years ago.

   Do you know Nelson Algren's address?  I read his book underlined:  Never Come