Facts & Figures
Synopsis
Editors
Contributors
Gallery
Manifesto
Bibliography
Milton Avant "Ab" Abernethy
editor, 1931 - 1934
As a 19-year-old sophomore at NC State University, Abernethy published several controversial articles decrying administrative decisions. As a result, he was found guilty of "disservice to the school" and expelled (Vickers 18). He transferred to Chapel Hill in January 1931. There he met Buttitta, and the two students established the Intimate Bookshop as a meeting place for their new magazine, Contempo. Financial hardship led Abernethy to take a job with the US Department of Agriculture in 1932, where he met Minna Krupsky, a Russian emigrant. Krupsky and Abernethy married, and after Buttitta's departure she served as co-editor of the magazine. After the magazine's dissolvement, the couple "turned their Chapel Hill bookstore...into a moneymaker" (Hutchisson 97). Later, they moved to New York where Abernethy became a successful stockbroker.

Anthony J. Buttitta
editor, 1931 - March 1932
Originally from Monroe, LA, Buttitta was an English graduate student at Chapel Hill when he met Abernethy. Buttitta befriended William Faulkner during Faulkner's inebriated visit to Chapel Hill. He also collected numerous poems from the author, which would eventually become part of the Faulkner issue of Contempo (Buttitta). Very early in the magazine's run, tensions began to rise between Abernethy and Buttitta, and in 1932 Buttitta moved to Durham where he opened his own Intimate Bookshop. He published two of his own issues of Contempo before he lost the rights to Abernethy. Buttitta later moved to Asheville, where he befriended author F. Scott Fitzgerald.

 

Compiled by Theodore Waldo Emerson (Class of '06, Davidson College) & Erica Robin Bahls (Class of '06, Davidson College).

  
 

 

Home | English Department | Davidson College
Department of English | © 2004 Davidson College | Davidson, NC
Please direct site comments to: Dr. Suzanne Churchill

Last Update 11/05/04