Editing Conrad Richter (section)

==Early career, marriage and move to New Mexico==
At the age of 19, Richter started working as an editor of a local weekly newspaper, the [[Patton, Pennsylvania]] ''Courier''. In 1911 Richter relocated to [[Cleveland, Ohio]], and worked as the private secretary to a wealthy manufacturing family. Richter married Harvena Maria Achenbach in 1915. They had their only child, Harvena Richter, in 1917. Richter worked subsequently for a small publishing company, initiated a juvenile magazine, and started writing short stories. During the 1930s, he also performed two brief stints as a [[screenwriter]] for [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios]] in [[Hollywood, California]].<ref name="johnson"/>

Richter continued writing and trying to sell short stories.<ref name="ohioana"/> In 1913, a young Conrad Richter sent manuscripts to literary editor [[Frederic Taber Cooper]]. Responding to Richter’s letter, Cooper writes that he does not give “gratuitous opinions on manuscripts, either to friends or strangers ... I suspect that your main difficulty is that, in straining after originality, you fail to make your stories ring true. Try to be simpler.”<ref>[https://orbis.library.yale.edu/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=13565354 Ravi D. Goel Collection of Frederic Taber Cooper]. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.</ref> His short story "Brothers of No Kin," published in ''[[The Forum (defunct magazine)|Forum]]'' magazine in 1914,<ref name="ohioana"/> was included in the "Roll of Honor for 1914" of American stories by [[Edward J. O'Brien]], editor of the ''Best Short Stories of 1915.''<ref name="obrien"/> O'Brien wrote in his "Introduction" that Richter's story was the best of all those published in 1914; the editor was explicitly concerned with the development of an "American literature" and considered Richter as integral to this.<ref name="obrien">[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20303/20303-h/20303-h.htm Edward J. O'Brien (editor), "Introduction", ''Best Short Stories of 1915''], Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1915, e-text online at Gutenberg Project</ref> This short story was re-issued as the title story of a posthumous collection published in 1973.

In 1928 Richter relocated to [[Albuquerque]], [[New Mexico]], for the sake of his wife's health.<ref name="johnson">[http://www.psupress.org/Justataste/samplechapters/justataste_johnson.html David R. Johnson, ''Conrad Richter''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080720154315/http://www.psupress.org/Justataste/samplechapters/justataste_johnson.html |date=2008-07-20 }}, Penn State Press, 2001</ref> During this period, he also collected much material from which he created short stories about the Southwest frontier days. By 1933, Richter and his wife had returned to live in his hometown of [[Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania|Pine Grove, Pennsylvania]]. They subsequently alternated between Pine Grove, Albuquerque, and Florida.<ref name="psupress">[http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02240-X.html Overview, Paperback version of ''The Waters of Kronos'', Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140508030239/http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02240-X.html |date=2014-05-08 }}</ref>