Hillsboro Publishing, LLC

This is the essay I referred to in the previous blog post. I’ve updated it slightly and had to do some sleight-of-hand to correct my wrong assumption that Betty was the keyboard player in the Archies. Enjoy! Their debut single went to the top of the charts. They had their own television show. They were adored by young people who loved their music, and by an older generation who saw them as clean-cut throwbacks to a quieter, more respectful time. Yet life wasn’t all burgers an

Back in 1995 I quit my first ad-agency job in a misguided and financially irresponsible attempt to make a living writing freelance advertising copy. I say misguided because I’m fairly horrible at self-promotion and because Decatur, Illinois was in no pressing need of my freelance services. The local newspaper once ran an ad in which you could see where a pencil line had been erased, and since the copy was no great shakes either I contacted the mom-and-pop company and offered