Although West had been working on his writing since college, it was not until his quiet night job at the hotel that he found the time to put his novel together. It was then that West wrote what would eventually become "Miss Lonelyhearts" (1933). Maxim Lieber served as his literary agent in 1933. In 1931, however, two years before he completed "Miss Lonelyhearts", West published "The Dream Life of Balso Snell", a novel that he had conceived of in college. By then, West was within a group of writers working in and around New York City that included William Carlos Williams and Dashiell Hammett.