On Letters to the Editor:

From a friend on reading an open forum article I wrote:

Well done, Robert! I saw and read it in the S.F. Chronicle.

Congratulations on getting it published! My letters to the editor almost never get published. The only time I could get the SF Chronicle to publish something I wrote was about a half dozen years ago. … I submitted an opinion page piece appealing for getting more public toilets available to people on the streets 24 hours a day, free of charge, and proposing how they could be operated safely, be kept clean and in operating condition, while, at the same time, providing jobs for unemployed people.

Everything else that I wrote, which was usually political or political/religious, never made it to the printed page.

Here is my response:

I send about ten letters to the SF Chronicle for each one published. Letters need to be short and making one point - vividly. I write about five Open Forum pieces a year and one gets published every three or four years. I also write to the The Living Church, Episcopal Life and Pacific Churchnews and get some published there too. Even the SF Examiner publishes some of mine.


I encourage you to write regularly and succinctly. That way they get to know you and your name gets into their orbit. You also are teaching the editors a thing or two about the values and interests you hold dear.

I think of these items as preaching the gospel incognito. It is also a hobby of mine.