A few years before the novel What Makes Sammy Run? caught the reading world's attention in 1941, Schulberg published a short story under the same name. It was one of the first of a series he wrote during the period 1937 to 1939. These short stories of Hollywood were published in various American magazines such as Liberty, Collier's, and the Saturday Evening Post. His favorite magazine of short stories Story even published some of his early work including a novella entitled "Passport to Nowhere." The themes of his early work predicate his later. All along his fascination is with the vagaries of life and the vicissitudes of success and failure, types of characters, and their varying responses to their own worlds.