APP

The Board of Directors for the Association of Professional Piercers met at my home in the Yucatan of Mexico this week (they left yesterday). We had a very productive meeting. One important task that got accomplished is that the new brochures I wrote for the organization have been posted on the Association of Professional Piercers website. Here's the link to one on Jewelry for Initial Piercings, and the other on Jewelry for Healed Piercings. This is material that was never previously available from the APP. You can download a .pdf file of all of the available pamphlets. It is so great to have brochures in print form, too. They can be purchased from the APP office. From the APP website:

I was out of town for the past week in Mexico City for the Association of Professional Piercers Seminars. It was the 4th annual seminar there, but the first one that I attended. Following the seminars, the Board of Directors had a meeting. It was a great trip and I really enjoyed Mexico City. I taught two classes there and participated in a round table discussion on piercing techniques (forceps vs. freehand). The first class was on Male Genital piercings and my co-instructor, Danny Yerna, led the class. I'd created a PowerPoint presentation for the class, and he and I had translated it into Spanish. I'm super excited and proud that I led the second class on Female Genital Piercings, and it was the first time I've ever taught a seminar in Spanish. I know my vocabulary is pretty good, but having learned from immersion (rather than in a classroom), my verbs are not conjugated properly, and I'm lacking a lot of the small connective words. But the important part is that the students said that I was clear and easy to understand. I'd sent 20 copies of The Piercing Bible to Mexico City, but between the shipping costs and duties that had to be paid, the cost came out higher than the cover price! Still, Danny (the APP International Liaison who organized the seminars and owns a studio in Mexico City) had sold them all before I even arrived! I wish I had a Spanish language version, as I know it would have sold very well there. Hopefully someday there will be versions in multiple languages!

Part of my volunteer work for the Association of Professional Piercers involves updating the website. I've been trying for days to figure out how to post the code to make it easy to share our banners, but I'm having a hard time with it. So I'm testing it out here. Does the banner work?

The Association of Professional Piercers is now offering The Piercing Bible on their website. They are charging the cover price of $20.00, but you get a signed copy of my book, and 25% of the proceeds are donated to this worthy non-profit organization! To order cal 888-888-1APP or email info@safepiercing.org. I serve on the Board of Directors of the APP as Medical Liaison. Our mission is to disseminate vital health and safety information to piercers, piercees, medical professionals, and the general public. And there's no doubt that my book, The Piercing Bible, falls within the scope of that mission!

I'm in Las Vegas for the annual conference for the Association of Professional Piercers and TODAY is the formal debut of The Piercing Bible. This is so exciting! So many of the piercers here have expressed interest and I expect to be quite busy selling and signing books. I also have my poster and postcards here to sign.

Jordan Ginsburg of BMEzine is about to post a review of The Piercing Bible, and he and I are scheduling an interview tomorrow that he'll be posting as a podcast on that site. I will give you the exact link once I know it. I'm also getting ready to head out to Las Vegas for the annual conference of the Association of Professional Piercers. I'm excited that we're holding it at the Tropicana this year. The Riviera was familiar after so many years, but change is good! Sure 't wait to see all my colleagues, associates, and friends there....

I had a fantastic time in San Diego with the members of the APP Board of Directors. We came from all over: Mexico City, the Yucatan, Atlanta, and Philadelphia to name a few places! Working on the book had been a very solitary endeavor, so it was great to be among my peers and spend some time catching up with everything. While I was there, I did a few piercings. That was also marvelous, as my recent life has involved only writing about it and not DOING it. And, I also got a new ornament of my own. Not that anybody has noticed, since it simply replaces a crystal I used to glue onto my face. I had APP Vice President, Didier Suarez, of Enigma Professional Body Piercing do a surface anchor below my existing bindi piercing. It was SO easy and painless, and it seems to be healing extremely well. The board was great about letting me work on my book, but plenty of tasks and duties have been waiting for my attention in the meantime. So, I've been busy writing and editing articles for The Point, and writing and editing the APP brochures. I also had a lovely visit with my family including my mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, nephew, and two nieces. And an uncle of sorts, too. He is actually my dad's partner when they did a hand-balancing acrobatic act decades ago in Atlantic City! While I was out there, I managed to fit in some visits with friends from high school, too. It was a non-stop trip and I enjoyed every hectic minute of it. Though, I'm glad to be back home with my husband and our house full of pets.

Now that the book is done and has been sent off to the printers, I'm able to get back on track with my volunteer work for the Association of Professional Piercers. The board has been kind enough to I am attending a board meeting in San Diego, California. I spoke with the President of the organization. He has been editing the quarterly journal, The Point, in addition to his other duties, and he'd like to have me help. So it looks like I'm not off the hook for writing, editing, and publishing--just moving on to a different publication.