Booklist Starred Review: "This is a real gem. . . . Written during World War II, this lively, outspoken, hugely entertaining chronicle tracks Powers' evolution as a professional writer; from newspaper and magazine joke writer, to rejection-slip collector; and - finally! - to published author. Although the memoir was written more than half a century ago, much of what Powers says about getting started in the publishing game still holds. (In addition, editor Laurie's introduction offers a concise and informative history of the pulp era). . . . it should be recommended enthusiastically to writers of all stripes and to anyone interested in the history of pulp publishing."

David Pitt, Booklist. April 1, 2007

Los Angeles Times. ". . . .Powers had a few illusions about his work: He knew his stories were lightweight entertainments, created to be consumed and discarded in a week's time. But he also knew they were good, and he took an honest and understandable pride in the 10 million words he estimated that he produced. Powers may not have been a great prose stylist, but he could spin a lively, readable yarn -- as this long-neglected autobiography attests."

Charles Solomon, Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2007

Dime Novel Roundup: "If you are a fan of the exploits of Sonny Tabor and Kid Wolf from the pages of Street & Smith’s pulp Wild West Weekly, this is the book for you. This is the memoir of the man who wrote those stories as Ward M. Stevens, Paul S. Powers. The story is a common one: a young man from Kansas with ambitions to be a writer recounts the years of struggle to achieve his goal. Powers worked at job after job, just to survive. At one time he even worked as a bellboy in a hotel that was an architectural challenge. He would take customers up the halls in search of room numbers that didn’t seem to exist! When he could find the time he sold jokes to newspapers and magazine(s). But he wanted to write fiction and soon became quite familiar with the pictorial letterheads on rejection slips from publishers from the Saturday Evening Post to those publication of Street & Smith. Eventually he sold a story to Weird Tales, but the legendary editor Farnsworth Wright only paid on publication and publication might be more than eight months away. Finally Powers sold a story to Street & Smith’s Wild West Weekly. Encouraged by editor Ronald Oliphant, Powers went on to sell several hundred novelettes to the magazine, most of them published under the name Ward [M.] Stevens. Some of these stories were collected and preserved in editions from Street & Smith’s Chelsea House imprint (Kid Wolf of Texas, 1930, and Wanted—Sonny Tabor, 1931). A few individual novelettes (such as The Ranger and the Cowboy and Spook Riders on the Overland) were reissued as Little Big Books in the series produced by Saalfield. After his pulp years, Powers continued writing and Macmillan published his novel Doc Dillahay. He died in 1971. The book is also the story of Laurie Powers’ search for her grandfather whom she remembered only from her perspective as a child. Laurie Powers, a subscriber to Dime Novel Round-Up, graduated from Smith with a major in American Studies. She learned about popular culture and the world of dime novels and pulps and read her grandfather’s fiction in the Street & Smith Collection at Syracuse University. Her quest for her grandfather led her to a cache of manuscripts, papers, and letters preserved by a relative. There, at the bottom of a carton of paper, was a manila envelope containing the manuscript of Paul Powers’ 1943 memoir that forms the principal part of this book. Her part of the book fills in gaps and serves as the context for his story as a writer. An intelligent man, he had aspirations beyond spinning dreams for the readers of pulpwood paper magazines. At the end she concludes that Paul Powers, alias Ward M. Stevens, was “a gifted writer who was able to polish his craft in the pulps and then use it to his best advantage to write a truly entertaining novel.” Writing talent was not limited to Paul S. Powers’ generation. In this collaboration with her grandfather Laurie Powers has produced an engaging account of the work of this pulp writer that belongs on the shelf of every pulp enthusiast and student of popular culture. ."

J. Randolph Cox, Dime Novel Roundup, June 2007

PULP WRITER: Twenty Years in the American Grub Street
Paul S. Powers, edited by Laurie Powers.
Univ. of Neb., $19.95 (274p) ISBN 9780803259843

Powers (1905-71) was the consummate pulp writer: from 1928 to '43, he wrote hundreds of stories under various pseudonyms for magazines like Wild West Weekly and Weird Tales. He also lived the life of an itinerant cowboy, making his home in towns throughout the West, squatting occasionally in ghost towns to soak up residual spirits of the cattle rustlers, vigilantes and dirty sheriffs he wrote about. Without the efforts of his granddaughter, editor Laurie Powers, all of this history would have been lost; she knew almost nothing about her grandfather's career when she decided to write about Doc Dillahay, his only published novel, for a college course in literature. The paper would grow into this book, which sent her across the country piecing together Powers' life from the remnants of long defunct publishing houses and boxes of unpublished materials. In the process, she finds not only Powers' lost memoirs but a measure of security lacking in her much-diminished family circle. This work is a treasure for pulp fans, and a fine introduction for those looking to learn more about an under appreciated American art form.

Publisher's Weekly, Web review, week of 6/18/07