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This writing was accepted for publication in the 94 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “a Link in the Chain” cc&d (v247) (the January / February 2014 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book a New Pen the cc&d Jan. - June 2014 collection book		get the 394 page Jan. - June 2014 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

cc&d: a Link in the Chain
a letter to C Ra McGuirt, of Penny Dreadful Press

C Ra,

    Hi there... It has been so long since we’ve talked, and since I was going through more changes to cc&d (and since you talked about all that cc&d had been through when the 20 year anniversary issue was coming out at your house open mic in Nashville for “Tag Team Poets” 5/18/13), I wanted to share even more changes with you about cc&d magazine in 2014. I think you liked what you heard about cc&d issue releases as ISBN# books in 2014 through amazon.com sales more globally, but since you’ve even been in the earliest issues (back when cc&d was starting in 1993 — you even have a “nopoem” poetry collection book of your writing in past issues of cc&d, with old covers sprinkled throughout the book), it got me reflecting over all of the changes we’ve done over the years with cc&d.
    Looking back, I wonder if cc&d magazine has had a sordid past, or one more comparable to that of a child, who has grown over the years... In the beginning of cc&d (way back in 1993), there weren’t that many contributors, but it was awesome having your writing in there, C Ra. But after only two years (and people discovered that “Children, Churches and Daddies” was a magazine with a title from a poem that talked about the dysfunctionality of those things at time, ergo the byline “the UN-religious, NON-family oriented literary and art mag”) we found ourselves releasing two to three issues monthly because we had so many good contributions.
    So with volume 75 (January 1996) we changed our format from 5.5”x8.5” saddle-stitch issues to 8.5”x11” (and held together with brad clips), adding an expanded news section, a political news section, a letters to the editor section, a lunchtime poll topic section, and a philosophy monthly section. (C Ra, I remember that you loved that I included the Unibomber Manifesto in cc&d in 1997 — and the hysterical kicker is that we only included it in the Internet issue, when he was so anti-technology.) We even started including sections of Scars books in issues, so print issues on average were around 100 pages. But when I was leaving to travel the country for nearly a year starting in the end of 1997, I decided to produce 6 issues of cc&d released in 1998 in advance, so I wouldn’t have to worry about the production of the magazine.
    But after traveling the country until the summer of 1998, I was driving to visit my parent’s house and was almost killed in my car while stopped at a traffic intersection. I was unconscious for 11 days, and had to relearn how to walk and talk and eat. And in all of this time (including my travel time), submissions were being emailed to me for cc&d. So because of my condition (and because working on cc&d was one of the things that kept me sane in my recovery, so I didn’t want anything to happen to stop the printing of cc&d), I decided to release a book of the 1999 cc&d issues, in the end of 1998.
    After the book release (and while still recovering), I produced two Internet audio issues, and then cc&d was only released as Internet web page issues (C Ra, I know, cc&d started releasing Internet issues via eworld.com in 1995 and aol.com in 1996, but this hiatus from being able to work on cc&d forced me to only release Internet issues temporarily). For the years 2001 and 2002, issues were only placed in collection books (in the book “oh”, we even used a more innovative poem design layout); as I had worked on expanding cc&d and Scars? Publications, a few issues were released as audio issues on line.
    And as a side note: back in 1994, we ran a supplement section in cc&d of poems called “Down in the Dirt”, and while we were working on making changes to cc&d (in print and on line), Scars Publications also decided to get an ISSN# for a new magazine named “Down in the Dirt”, designed similarly to cc&d. Sometimes the same writers from cc&d appear in “Down in the Dirt”, but all of their accepted writings appear in the “writings” section at http://scars.tv/cgi-bin/framesmain.pl?writers where all writers are sorted alphabetically (as are their writings under their name).
    Speaking of issues online, it was around this time that Scars Publications finally decided on a domain name for this enterprise (and trust me, other places with the name scars took up all common Internet extensions like .com or .org or .net, and http://scars.tv made complete sense, since Scars also did CD releases and videos of performance art poetry and prose readings). So it was cool that cc&d could have it’s own web address that fit the magazine in http://scars.tv/ccd that anyone can go to to get to cc&d magazine.
    But by 2003 cc&d started quarterly print issues as we went back to the 8.5”x11” format. But after the one year of quarterly large-format issues, we opted to bring cc&d back to its original 5.5”x8.5” format... I think as editor that let me down a bit, because that change back to a smaller issue size and format seemed like we were going backwards, but at the same time I kept in mind that we were removing the additions that lengthened the 8.5”x11” issues in this change as well, and that was in the hope of getting the magazine back to it’s literary “roots”...
    In the beginning, I occasionally ran essays in the front of issues in “the Boss Lady’ Editorial”, and with the new format of the issues of cc&d through the 2000s (and probably because of the issues many people had with the President, along with the war efforts and the failing economy), more editorial popped up in cc&d issues. These editorials ran for years, and sometimes an Internet-only editorial would appear in more recent issues (because of the timeliness of editorials and the advance filling of magazine issues).
    After the re-emergence of the 5.5”x8.5” format issues, a performance art section started cropping up in occasional issues, with poetry and prose (and sometimes art) from live Chicago performance art shows. (These were also later released as supplement ISSN# “issues” to cc&d.) But as more people were rapidly filling print issues, and with the max page size we could effectively saddle stitch at 44 pages, we found that in order to fit all of the writings, I had to stretch margins to the edges of the page and make margin space as small as possible, I reduced the font size, and I put multiple small poems from different authors on the same page.
    And I realized that I had this similar problem when I released cc&d issues 2 or 3 times a month in the 1990s before changing the format of the issues. So by 2010, we brought another change cc&d — that’s when we starting releasing issues through a formal printer, so 5.5”x8.5” issues then had full bleed full color glossy covers. Also, all page lengths increased from 40 pages to 83 pages, so there was a lot more room now to better showcase writer’s work.
    By July 2010, 5.5”x8.5” perfect-bound ISSN#?issues were also released as 6” x 9” perfect-bound ISBN# books (available at online book stores like amazon.com Ð but because these were available only at a higher price, few of these issued-as-books were sold).
    So yes, there have been many changes over the years, including the most recent change in 2013 to release issues every other month instead of monthly. But yes, we think it’s time for another change — and most definitely another growth — with the emergence of ALL of the issues of cc&d to be released by a different printer same printer that releases our ISBN# collection books. With that, we will make two major changes to cc&d... One change is that we are changing the size of the pages from 5.5"x8.5" to 6"x 9" (which mean writing will have more space again in the magazines). We have never released cc&d in this size before, so this is an exciting prospect for us, but with this new printer, we are able to have varying page lengths in some issues (since 2010 issues have been 84 pages, but if we need to now, we can have more than 84 pages if we choose, and it won’t effect the price per issue). One more big change for 2014 is that cc&d magazine will now be released with both a cc&d ISSN# barcode and an ISBN# barcode.
    This printer change and ISBN# use for cc&d took some time to decide upon; the main reason we chose this move was to make print issues more widely available for sale to the U.K. market and the European market (since the printer we switched to for this has printing facilities across the pond for printing issues, saving money for accepted writers from England or Austria or Germany or Italy or Malta or Slovenia — I know, I know, I still have no local way to print for contributors in Argentina or Brazil or China or Japan, but cut us some slack, we’re doing the best we can here)...
    We here at cc&d have tried to get the word out about this magazine — this is why, in light of keeping full issues of cc&d on line since the domain address http://scars.tv/ccd started, we have also started reading accepted writings in recently released issues of cc&d at the poetry open mic I host in Chicago (a long list of video clips of my readings from cc&d, “Down in the Dirt” and collection books, at http://scars.tv/kuypers/poems/kuypers-reads-other-authors.htm). We have tried to get accepted writings from cc&d out into the world in as many ways as we could. Although reading cc&d accepted writings at a Chicago poetry open mic is one way, and broadcasting YouTube videos of cc&d poetry readings to the world is another, we have also looked for different ways to make the print issues fit the needs of our readers.
    We could have continued to run cc&d issues as 5.5”x8.5” perfect-bound books with their usual ISSN# barcode, but we knew that for our print magazine, we were essentially losing out on a more global market. We know we keep our issues online as well, but they do not look or feel like our print issues. And if there is a market in the U.K. or continental Europe for our magazine (especially for our contributors from across the pond), we wanted to find a way to make print issues of cc&d more available to them.
    And C Ra, I know when you first heard of this idea you loved it, especially giving people outside the United States more access to the print issues. This way, we are also keeping all of our printing (of issues and collection books, as well as books published by individual authors until the Scars Publications umbrella) at one printer, and people will be able to find not only our books, but also all of our new magazine issues through amazn.com any time.
    Because cc&d magazine has been growing over the years. I don’t know if it was a sordid past, but in light of health issues of my own, the past has really given cc&d a tumultuous upbringing. It’s also great that I have stayed in contact with poets from the early days of cc&d (like you C Ra, and like how I still have artwork from Cheryl Townsend that appears in issues — Lyn Lifshin even just recently sent a submission to Scars Publications). And when it comes to cc&d, we’ll continue to look for ways to get the great writing that has graced its pages out to as many as we can — in as many ways as we can.
    Thanks for being with me on this journey. It’s been a long ride, and we hope you enjoy the ride with us.

— Janet Kuypers

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