Northern Journey, No. 3 (October 1973)

While Glassco submitted nothing to Northern Journey after the little magazine's debut, his name did appear again in its pages. The third issue features a short story, "Slow Burn", in which a character named "Margaret Atwood", "the reigning queen of Canadian literature", rides in a car after a reading:

Ms. Atwood sat up front. She said she was satisfied with the reading but not as pleased as she was in Montreal where John Glassco had paid her a grand compliment. After her performance there, "Buffy" had come up to tell her that she had given him "a great big erection."

The story, by journalist Wil Wigle, prompted a letter from Atwood's lawyer to Northern Journey editor Fraser Sutherland. Demands were made, the Writers Union became involved, resignations followed and unpleasantness spread like spilled paint in kindergarten class.

Glassco hadn't read the story for the simple reason that he had no subscription; an oversight he soon corrected.

A friend of both Atwood and Sutherland, Glassco found himself in a awkward position, and worked behind the scenes to diffuse the situation. In the end, he dismissed the mess as "an erection in a teapot."

Not only did Northern Journey not bend to the demands made by Atwood's lawyer, Rosalie Abella (now a Supreme Court justice), it played up "the offending issue".

The Globe & Mail, 2 November 1974

More, much more, in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The twenty-third of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.