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The Scars of CEE (Public Service Announcement)

CEE

    I’ve been the fair-haired boy, the favored son, for a # of publications and houses. I just got lucky that way. Editors get you, or they don’t (Word of Advice: If you don’t break through somewhere after 2 submissions, then Lotsa Luck, if you wanta keep banging your head; you can’t leave anything but a good taste, from the very start, and hope to ever swing the editor). I’ve played it as Johnny Appleseed. I got lucky, that’s all. There’s no way, that it wasn’t luck.
    I’ve been a fair-haired boy, for an underground pub. I’ve been a fair-haired boy for what amounted to a desktop publication. I’ve been the fair of hair for a pub so independently and cheaply produced, I referred to it as “blue toilet paper”. I’ve been fair and favored for at least one editor who bent the rules to breaking. If you’re well liked, Willy Loman, screw the rest. The editor/publisher, has the say. They like you, you’re kept.
    With Scars Publications, I hit the jackpot. Here’s why:
    It ain’t blue toilet paper. I couldn’t have put out a better pub from my iFruity. And, though there’s the gritty and the dark and the hard-hitting, Scars isn’t cheap porn. Fact is, Scars Publications is a top, professional outfit, run with single-minded purpose by a Boss Lady who doesn’t mince words. Scars puts out attractive pubs and books. The ideas within may not be so attractive, but heads up, homes: Human Isn’t Pretty. Scars packages often ugly truth, which is, after all, what a “scar” is. A scar is Reality. A scar is not beautiful. A scar is The Truth. A scar makes you sick.
    Janet Kuypers is multi-talented, but she hails first from the land of photography, and by way of that, is a formatting genius. She is pragmatic. She is best when she does right-brained activities using left-brained methodology. She is prolific, and as a publisher as well. Scars Publications is a multi-pronged affair. The books are legion. They Look Good. They are well-put-together. They are produced so as to be what they are, “writing and art by Professionals”. And in the current economy, no one has the kind of money, to shovel it down endless holes. Scars keeps growing, producing. It is able to do so, because Scars Publications Sell...and they sell, because they are Quality. In look and in feel and because Janet Kuypers knows what fits her pubs and her readership. She’s not an heiress. You don’t notice her grabbing a snack with Anderson Cooper. She WORKS FOR A LIVING. And, she built Scars from (more or less) the ground up. That it has not imploded but keeps expanding along with the universe, means Scars is a concept that works. It’s sound. No matter how many of the assed masses, demand formulaic happy endings. Life isn’t that way. Would to God!...but, it isn’t. And, Janet knows it. And, she allows us to say it, at least those who say it well. The Boss Lady, can hear what voices have the ugliest, most honest scars in them. These are the ones she accepts. Formats. Prints. Produces. And, we all benefit.
    Again, I’ve been very, very lucky, in my brief traipse through the independent press and beyond. I’ve done what King disparaged as “throwing darts in a darkened room”, and it’s worked a treat and I couldn’t care less, if others think it unfair. Life Is Unfair. Janet knows that. It’s what Scars keeps showing us, by the myriad personal wounds within. But, my point is, Scars Publications is HUGE, and it’s professional and it’s known. I’ve been a fair-haired boy for many a literary parent. This particular mom, has kept me well. I have more reason to brag about Janet-ever-loving-Kuypers and her sky full of Scars, than with any other bullseye I’ve hit. The difference, the keynote, is Quality. Pirsig, in Zen..., found inescapably, that Quality is whatever you like. I like Scars Publications. I’m grateful it likes Me.

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