Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 4. Whole No. 143, October 1955

In our July 1954 issue we brought you a group of four stories by children — “first stories” by a twelve-year-old boy from Brooklyn, a twelve-year-old American boy living in Ireland, an eight-year-old American girl living in Germany, and a six-year-old child prodigy from New York These four tales were remarkable efforts to have come from such young writers, and the stories themselves almost ran the gamut of the mystery field — a study of juvenile delinquency, a hardboiled satire, a “pure” detective story, and a new-fashioned ghost story. We wondered if our publication of stories by children would quicken the interest of other children to try so difficult a “game” as creative writing. We hoped it would, and we are glad to report that our hopes were fulfilled.

We are now ready to give you The Second Children’s Hour — this time two stories, one by a fifteen-year-old girl and the other by a nine-year-old boy... what talent there is in the younger generation!

First, then, meet Rebecca Weiner, a Junior (at the time she wrote her story) at Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Connecticut. In her letter accompanying the story, Miss Weiner said: “I have always been a little shy of showing my stories even to my family; now I am taking a step that is just about killing me — sending you a story.” Have you ever read a more touching, more sensitive, more penetratingly true statement made by a young — a very young — author?

Miss Weiner told us that her family ties are exceptionally close, and that she has always received warmth and encouragement from her parents. In her senior year in high school she was editor-in-chief of the school literary magazine, “The Gleam.” Writing, she insists, is not an avocation with her; “rather [and we now quote] it is a part of me and something I must do. I wrote my first story when I was six, and since then I have not stopped writing, nor have I changed my mind as to my life-long ambition — to write a really great book some day.”

Miss Weiner’s favorite authors include Thornton Wilder, J. D. Salinger, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, and John Steinbeck; and one of her ambitions is to study creative uniting under Archibald MacLeish. Oh, this wonderful, fabulous, awe-inspiring younger generation!

And now, Rebecca Weiner’s story...

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