\documentclass[11pt]{amsart}
\usepackage{geometry}   
\geometry{letterpaper}
% Activate to begin paragraphs with an empty line 
%\usepackage[parfill]{parskip}   
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{epstopdf}

\title{Brief Article}
\author{The Author}
\begin{document}
\maketitle

It was the best of times, it was the 

\end{document}  