Alberta 1917–1954

My First Appearance in New York City

My First Appearance in New York City

My First Appearance In New York City

By Onoto Watanna, author of “A Japanese Nightingale.”
(Mrs. Reeve is now living on a ranch at Morley and is in the midst of several important literary endeavors).
By Onoto Watanna (Mrs. Winnifred Reeve) author of “A Japanese Nightingale.”
I was eighteen years old. I had received a letter from Mr. Ellery Sedgwick, then editor of Frank Leslie’s (now editor of the Atlantic Monthly). Instead of the usual rejection slip, he wrote expressing an interest in me, and suggested that I should let him see “anything else you have written.”
Upon my arrival in New York, I did not wait to secure lodgings. I went straight from the train, bag in hand, to Mr. Sedgwick’s office. Having explained to him who I was—he appeared to have forgotten that letter he had written me—I said: “And you wrote me to let you see anything else I had written, and so…”
I opened my bag. He leaped to his feet, threw up his hands, and shouted:
“Help! Help!”
In rushed half a dozen editors and clerks, and the wild-looking Mr. Sedgwick pointed dramatically to that bag of mine, which was brim full  to the top with manuscripts. With a vague idea that I was about to be arrested, I burst into tears. I bawled as hard and heartily as only a husky youngster can, with the result that outrageous mirth was checked, and Mr. Sedgwick alternately wringing his hands and running them through his hair implored me to stop weeping. He said:
“Don’t cry! Don’t cry! Don’t cry like that! Stop it! I’ll buy a story from you if you will. I’ll buy all your stories if you do. There, there, no one’s going to hurt you. Shut up, do!”
In later years, when Mr. Sedgwick and I would meet at intervals, he liked to recall the several amusing episodes he recalled in my past, and he told our friends that I had blackmailed him with tears into buying my first story.

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People Mentioned

Leean Wu

Leean is an Honours English language and literature student at the University of British Columbia and a research assistant for The Winnifred Eaton Archive. She was an undergraduate teaching assistant for the UBC Coordinated Arts Program for two years and a research assistant for the UBC Public Humanities Hub.

Winnifred Eaton

  • Born: August 21, 1875
  • Died: April 08, 1954
See the Biographical Timeline for biographical information on Winnifred Eaton.

Pseudonym used in this text

Joey Takeda

Joey Takeda is the Technical Director of The Winnifred Eaton Archive and a Developer at Simon Fraser University’s Digital Humanities Innovation Lab (DHIL). He is a graduate of the M.A. program in English at the University of British Columbia where he specialized in Indigenous and diasporic literature, science and technology studies, and the digital humanities.
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