Dear Reader

Beside this letter you will find the decision taken by the jury in the story contest which this magazine held.

It is a decision that was no less a shock to the writers who entered the contest than it was to The Woman's Voice itself. It cut to the heart of the women who edit this magazine and watch over it that our well-known women of letters, and our well-known men of letters, should not have taken part in the contest; and that the art of the story among us should still lag behind the caravan of the other literary arts, notwithstanding the standing it enjoys in the literatures of other nations. The result was what it was: not a single story came near to winning the approval of the jury — which includes, as you see, storytellers who have their own standing in the story-literature of this country, and a man of letters who has written on the story, its old and its new, and its present.

And if The Woman's Voice is sorry for the conclusion which the jury reached, it has not yet despaired of the existence of buried possibilities, and it still hopes that the imprisoned talents will break loose from their tether. It therefore grants the jury's wish, and extends the term of the contest to the end of October 1950, full of hope, as the jury is, 'that the contestants will have better luck' this time.