On one evening in 1916, before the United States had entered the World War, I happened to be out with my mother. The place was Bridgeport, Connecticut, near the corner of Main and State Streets. The stars were shining, as usual, though I gave them no particular notice. We had turned the corner and traversed several feet, when I chanced to look up into the sky. Lo and behold, the stars had formed themselves into one great patch in the heavens, in the form of letters, and those letters spelled words! I could read some, at the time, but I tugged at my mother’s arm and asked her what it said. I am hazy as to her answer. Perhaps she told me that there was nothing there, or ignored the childish gesture entirely. At any rate, I looked up again and the words were still there. I don’t believe that my mother even glanced at them. You are anxious to learn what it said? Well, it took years for that memory to come back to me, but I now have it, in what I am fairly sure are the correct words. The exact ones do not make any difference, for I am sure of their meaning. The message in the sky read, “The United States of America will run red with blood!” A short time after peering at the stars, some invisible forces took hold of them. The brilliant orbs were shifted as by a mighty hand. They moved like checkers on a vast board. And then, the stars ceased their journeyings; they were once more on their accustomed courses. I lowered my head; the gigantic show was over! Delusion, you say? I’m afraid I don’t agree with you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ HOW TO WRITE A WEIRD TALE by Hoy Ping Pong Unlike its sister, the science fiction story, the weird tale needs a plot. To go about this, select the plot which has been used most since 1926 and write your tale around it. I said _around_. Don’t touch the plot itself; editors won’t stand for that! Above all, _don’t_ invent an original one. Readers won’t know what you’re talking about if you don’t use one that has been plotted 6,438,900 and a fraction times, more or less. At this point, you can discard the plot altogether, because the editor would send your brain-child back if you didn’t, on the grounds that there are too many stories with plots in them as it is. They would rather have action.