Editing Pauline Phillips (section)

==Career==
Phillips' writing career began in January 1956 when she was 37 and new to the San Francisco area. She phoned the editor of the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' and said that she could write a better advice column than the one that she had been reading in the newspaper.<ref name="Abby"/><ref name=ABCNews/> After hearing her modest credentials, editor Stanleigh Arnold gave her some letters in need of answers and told her to bring back her replies in a week; Phillips got her replies back to the ''Chronicle'' in an hour and a half. In an interview with [[Larry King]], she said that she had no work experience, lacking even a social security number. The editor, however, asked if she was a professional writer. He said that her writing was "fabulous', and she was hired that day.<ref name="Abby"/><ref>video interview: {{YouTube|akk_67S3DUk|"'Dear Abby' talks about her big break"}}, CNN</ref>

She went by the pen name [[Abigail Van Buren]], combining the [[Old Testament]] prophetess from [[s:Bible (King James)/1 Samuel#25:33|1 Samuel]]<ref name=NYT/> with President [[Martin Van Buren]].<ref name="Ander">{{cite news |title=At 72, 'Dear Abby' Says Retirement Is A Dirty Word |author=Ander, Marsha S. |url=http://docs.newsbank.com/s/InfoWeb/aggdocs/AWNB/0EB04D391BB2E2F9/0D0CB57AB53DF815 |newspaper=[[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]] |date=June 8, 1991 |access-date=September 14, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190709000259/http://iw.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_action%3Ddoc%26p_theme%3Daggdocs%26p_topdoc%3D1%26p_docnum%3D1%26p_sort%3DYMD_date:D%26p_product%3DAWNB%26p_docid%3D0EB04D391BB2E2F9%26p_text_direct-0%3Ddocument_id%3D%28%200EB04D391BB2E2F9%20%29%26p_nbid%3DR51I4CYCMTMxNjA0ODI3NS44MTA1OTI6MTo5OjEyOC |archive-date=July 9, 2019 |url-status=dead  }}</ref> Her twin sister was the author of the [[Ask Ann Landers|Ann Landers]] column, and the competition created acrimony between them for many years. In 1956, Phillips offered her column to the ''[[Sioux City Journal]]'' at a reduced price, provided that the paper refuse to print her sister's column.<ref name="Ink"/> The sisters ostensibly reconciled in 1964 but remained competitors.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Ann Landers biography |encyclopedia=Jewish Virtual Library |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Landers.html |last=Judd |first=Robin |author-link=Robin Judd}}</ref> They became "the most widely read and most quoted women in the world" in 1958, according to ''Life'' magazine.<ref name=Life>''Life'' magazine, April 7, 1958 pp. 102–112</ref>

===Writing style===
Newspapers had included gossip and personal columnists for more than a century, but the two sisters added "something special", according to ''Life'', in that they were the first to publish letters and replies covering a wide range of personal problems, replying with "vaudeville punch lines" rooted in common sense.<ref name=Life/> The editor of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' described their skill as "beyond mere shrewdness—a quality very close to genuine wisdom."<ref name=Life/>

{{blockquote|With her comic and flinty yet fundamentally sympathetic voice, Mrs. Phillips helped wrestle the advice column from its weepy Victorian past into a hard-nosed 20th-century present.<ref name=NYT/>}}

Phillips stated that she did not publish the most sensitive letters that she received, but instead replied to them individually. Sometimes she would write a brief note on the letter itself, letting one of her secretaries respond fully using her advice. If a person seemed suicidal from their letter, she would call them on the phone.<ref name=chronicle/><ref name=Life/>