Hi @TheEdVerse, hope you are well! Got a question about your career…
In January 1981, you joined Dragon Magazine as a contributing editor, and I'm wondering what that meant? Were you officially on staff, or was it just a fancy title for a high-end freelancer?
Thanks! MTB
— M.T. Black (@MTBlack2567) May 17, 2021
Short version: I apparently impressed Kim Mohan by submitting an article (the gates piece, that appeared in issue 37) that had footnotes. I was flooding The Dragon with submissions by then. Kim asked if I was coming to GenCon that year, and if so could we meet. I went, we… 2)
…met, and he offered me the unpaid position (masthead title); Roger E. Moore, who afterwards became a TSR staffer, also accepted a Contributing Editor position the same weekend.
Kim came from a journalism background, and needed folks who could write "to order" (on editor-…— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 17, 2021
4)
The Dragon was partially filled with material written by staffers (sometimes “stuff that wouldn’t fit” in published products, as this was before pixels), and otherwise by freelance submissions; the editors were sensitive to possibly offending contributors who submitted but… 5)
…didn't see their stuff used, and a masthead title was also seen as a way to assuage hurt feelings and keep gamers contributing, by providing a reason why "we keep using this guy's stuff."
But it was mainly a way to get a reliable flow of stuff that could be banked and…— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 17, 2021
how did you end up getting chosen to write the ixitxachitls ecology article? Kim Mohan sent me lists of monsters he wanted covered (the series came from a defunct magazine, and had a handful of ecologies already written, plus Roger and others were writing other monsters, so to avoid conflicts: the lists).
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 17, 2021
If I recall correctly, I did eight of them in a rush to give Kim a roster-in-hand, then smaller batches (four at a time, or a trio). It was a delight, though we didn't always have wordcount/the chance to really dig deep into "they hunt/can be deployed like this."
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 17, 2021
Oh, and here’s the capsule bio that Jake Jacquet wrote for you when he announced your appointment: Thanks for this. Fun days, all right. D&D was exploding in all directions. That GenCon, BTW, was at UofW-Parkside; Kim and I just banged open one of the many glass doors in the room where he was sitting at a folding table (the Dragon booth) and we went for a stroll in the park.
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 18, 2021