“Everyone’s got to start some­where,” a banal plat­i­tude that express­es a tru­ism worth repeat­ing: wher­ev­er you are, you’ve got to get start­ed. If you’re John Updike (who would have been 82 years old yes­ter­day), you start where so many oth­er accom­plished fig­ures have, the Har­vard Lam­poon. If you’re Charles Bukows­ki… believe it or not, you actu­al­ly start in an equal­ly renowned pub­li­ca­tion. Bukowski’s first fic­tion appeared in Sto­ry, a mag­a­zine that helped launch the careers of Cheev­er, Salinger, Saroy­an, Car­son McCullers and Richard Wright.

But if you’re Charles Bukows­ki, you come out swing­ing. Your first pub­lished work in 1944  is a non­sense sto­ry writ­ten as an eff you to the edi­tor, Whit Bur­nett. You fea­ture Mr. Bur­nett as a char­ac­ter, along with a cat who shakes hands (sort of), a pros­ti­tute named Mil­lie, a few card-play­ing drunks, an impe­ri­ous “short sto­ry instruc­tress,” and a mys­te­ri­ous “bleary-eyed tramp.” Oh, and you open the sto­ry by quot­ing ver­ba­tim one of Burnett’s rejec­tion let­ters:

Dear Mr. Bukows­ki:

Again, this is a con­glom­er­a­tion of extreme­ly good stuff and oth­er stuff so full of idol­ized pros­ti­tutes, morn­ing-after vom­it­ing scenes, mis­an­thropy, praise for sui­cide etc. that it is not quite for a mag­a­zine of any cir­cu­la­tion at all. This is, how­ev­er, pret­ty much the saga of a cer­tain type of per­son and in it I think you’ve done an hon­est job. Pos­si­bly we will print you some­time but I don’t know exact­ly when. That depends on you.

Sin­cere­ly yours,

Whit Bur­nett

I won’t spoil it for you—you must read (or lis­ten to below) “After­math of a Lengthy Rejec­tion Slip” for yourself—but the let­ter sets up a typ­i­cal­ly Bukowskian punch­line: wry and sar­cas­tic and wist­ful and lyri­cal all at once.

Bukows­ki was 24 and had only been writ­ing for two years by this time. He lat­er recalled being very unhap­py with the pub­li­ca­tion. For one, writes Book­tryst, “it had been buried in the End Pages sec­tion of the mag­a­zine as, Bukows­ki felt, a curios­i­ty rather than a seri­ous piece of writ­ing.” How­ev­er, Bukows­ki had already sent Sto­ry dozens of what he con­sid­ered seri­ous pieces of writ­ing before pen­ning “After­math,” which he admits he tamed for the sake of Burnett’s sen­si­bil­i­ties. In an inter­view near the end of his life, Bukows­ki remem­bered sub­mit­ting to the mag­a­zine “a cou­ple of short sto­ries a week for maybe a year and half. The sto­ry they final­ly accept­ed was mild in com­par­i­son to the oth­ers. I mean in terms of con­tent and style and gam­ble and explo­ration and all that.”

Bukows­ki may have been bit­ter, but his first pub­li­ca­tion, and last sub­mis­sion to Sto­ry, might deserve cred­it for inspir­ing a life­time of boozy mate­r­i­al: look­ing back, he recalls that after the per­ceived slight, he “drank and became one of the best drinkers any­where, which takes some tal­ent also.” Everybody’s got to start some­where.

Book­tryst has more to the sto­ry, as well as sev­er­al images of the rare 1944 Bukows­ki issue of Sto­ry. Above, in two parts, lis­ten to the sto­ry in the won­der­ful­ly dry bari­tone of Tom O’Bedlam, whom you may already know from our pre­vi­ous posts on Bukowski’s poems “Nir­vana” and “So You Want to Be a Writer?”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Three Inter­pre­ta­tions of Charles Bukowski’s Melan­choly Poem “Nir­vana”

Lis­ten to Charles Bukows­ki Poems Being Read by Bukows­ki Him­self & the Great Tom Waits

So You Want to Be a Writer?: Charles Bukows­ki Explains the Dos & Don’ts

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Accord­ing to Ted Mor­gan, author of William S. Bur­roughs biog­ra­phy Lit­er­ary Out­law (which Bur­roughs hat­ed), the hard-liv­ing Beat writer added “teacher” to the list of jobs he did not like after an unhap­py semes­ter teach­ing cre­ative writ­ing at the City Col­lege of New York. He com­plained about dimwit­ted stu­dents, and dis­liked the job—arranged for him by Allen Ginsberg—so much that he lat­er turned down a posi­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Buf­fa­lo that paid $15,000 a semes­ter, even though he des­per­ate­ly need­ed the mon­ey. That Bur­roughs had recent­ly kicked hero­in may have con­tributed to his unease with the pro­sa­ic reg­u­lar­i­ties of col­lege life. What­ev­er the sto­ry, he lat­er remarked that the “teach­ing gig was a les­son in nev­er again.”

What then could have lured Bur­roughs out to Boul­der Col­orado five years lat­er to deliv­er a series of lec­tures on cre­ative writ­ing at Naropa Uni­ver­si­ty? He’d picked up his hero­in habit again, and his friend­ship with Ginsberg—who co-found­ed Naropa’s writ­ing program—must have played a part. What­ev­er the rea­sons, this assign­ment dif­fered great­ly from his City Col­lege stint: no stu­dent writ­ing, no office hours or admin. Just Bur­roughs doing what came naturally—holding court, on lit­er­a­ture, para­psy­chol­o­gy, occult eso­ter­i­ca, vio­lence, aliens, neu­ro­science, and his own nov­els Naked Lunch and The Soft Machine.

Bur­roughs’ lec­tures are heav­i­ly philo­soph­i­cal, which might have turned off his New York stu­dents, but sure­ly turned on his Naropa audi­ence. And if you stopped to lis­ten, it will prob­a­bly turn you on too, in ways cre­ative and intel­lec­tu­al. Osten­si­bly on the sub­ject of cre­ative read­ing, Bur­roughs also offers cre­ative writ­ing instruc­tion in each talk. His dis­cus­sions of writ­ers he admires—from Car­son McCullers to Aleis­ter Crow­ley to Stephen King—are fas­ci­nat­ing, and he uses no short­age of exam­ples to illus­trate var­i­ous writ­ing tech­niques. For­tu­nate­ly for us, the lec­tures were record­ed. Says Dan­ger­ous Minds, who pro­vide help­ful descrip­tions of each lec­ture: “now you can have your very own cre­ative writ­ing class from William S. Bur­roughs, all thanks to the won­ders of YouTube.” Hear all three lec­tures above, and be by turns inspired, instruct­ed, enlight­ened, and warped.

You can find Bur­rough’s lec­tures on Cre­ative Read­ing list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es, part of our larg­er col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

William S. Bur­roughs Explains What Artists & Cre­ative Thinkers Do for Human­i­ty: From Galileo to Cézanne and James Joyce

William S. Bur­roughs on the Art of Cut-up Writ­ing

William S. Bur­roughs Reads His Con­tro­ver­sial 1959 Nov­el Naked Lunch

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness