We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marie Kuipers. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marie below.

Marie, appreciate you joining us today. Often the greatest growth and the biggest wins come right after a defeat. ther times the failure serves as a lesson that’s helpful later in your journey. We’d appreciate if you could open up about a time you’ve failed.

Oh, I’ve failed loads of times, probably more than I’ve not failed! I started two businesses–years apart–that I really believed in. I created beautiful, meticulously designed products that I KNEW people would love if they could just see them. But that’s literally all I knew. I didn’t know that having a beautiful product is not nearly enough…you need to know how to sell it. And I didn’t. (I still don’t.) My mistake was thinking I could make something beautiful and POOF! Success! Not by a long shot. What I should have done was combine my efforts with someone whose specialty it was to sell the beautiful things, and let myself off the hook for that part of the work. I can’t do it to save my life. That was a painful lesson, but a really great one: know what you’re good at and do that one thing. Or find out what you’re good at. The thing you’re good at has value. More importantly, know what you’re NOT good at, and let someone else do it. There’s no shame in saying “selling is not my jam” or “I’m not super creative; I like numbers.” It’s quite liberating, actually.

Marie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

In my day job as an eagle-eyed copy editor and proofreader, I am the Grammar Hammer, dedicated to making even the clunkiest prose sparkle and sing. As a longtime publishing-industry professional, most of my time is spent helping authors make their books the best they can be and helping them navigate the nerves and doubts that inevitably rear their heads. A proud daughter of the Garden State, I only have an accent if you manage to enrage me (and I’ve already had my chardonnay). I graduated from Georgetown University roughly 200 years ago and hold editing certification from the University of Chicago Graham School. Currently, I live with an assortment of flatulent dogs and coddled chickens near Chicago, where I coach junior roller derby while still longing for New Jersey and its dubious assortment of encased meats.

I published my first book (a memoir) last year, which was indeed really scary and really hard. Some of the stories are lighthearted, but most are not (they are all, however, hilarious. If I do say so myself.) My family is riddled with generational trauma and mental-health issues that continue to resonate in all of us. I wrote my book to help normalize talking about this stuff, because it’s everywhere. We can’t help where we come from or the things that happen to us, but we can help how we leverage those things for growth and joy. Because there is joy to be found and created–no matter how much shit we have to crawl through to get to it. That’s the key: we have a responsibility to ourselves to create our own joy. That’s nobody else’s job. I wanted to write a book that was brutally honest about some very dark things while still being funny and relatable. And that’s the overwhelming feedback I get from readers: they feel seen. They can’t believe someone else has been through what they have (and has the unfettered gall to speak about it). Someone who has been as down-bad as a person can be and come out the other side of it cackling. There is hope for us all.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I’d have a hard time choosing just one! Seriously, my entire book is filled with stories of being knocked down, t-boned, pummeled, and crushed by hit after hit; failure, grief, illness, loss, betrayal…you name it. But I never failed to pick myself up off the ground and keep going. One foot in front of the other. What other choice is there? This is life. Life is HARD. And I know that in many respects, life is short; but life is also long. When you’re in a dark place or a bad marital/job/financial situation, you could be looking down the barrel at many years of misery if you don’t make a change. Once again, no one is going to do that for you. You figure out what you need in order to live the life you deserve and then you figure out how to get there. And you go. Take steps. Move the needle. Change your story. That’s resilience. That’s moxie.

After one particularly devastating life event (wherein my ex-husband stalked and catfished me for years before I found out in very dramatic fashion), I was so defeated and so riddled with PTSD that I was on empty. A shell of a human. That’s the closest I ever came to truly breaking — I blamed myself (as one does), and could find no way out of the hole I was in. Then one day I happened to see the movie Whip It on TV, and I decided that what I really needed was Roller Derby (as one does). That I was not going to give that sewer clown one more ounce of my strength or power or bad-assery. So I found a local league and signed up. Didn’t matter that I was 44 years old and had never roller skated in my life. I fucking figured it out. And it saved me. That one (insane, bonkers) decision turned everything around and I found out really fast what I was made of. And many years later, that is still who I am; who I know myself to be. I’m the bad bitch who got off the couch and decided to kick my own ass to save my soul.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

This is easy. It’s the connections you forge along the way. The people you touch with your stories. It’s always been important to me to make others feel included, and that’s part of what writing my memoir was about. Being the voice that says (out loud), “This happened to me. Let’s talk about it, just in case it happened to you, too.” That’s one thing I never had growing up in this absurdly dysfunctional family: someone on the outside who understood and could empathize. Even someone who definitely *didn’t* understand (and said so) would have been incredibly helpful and validating…just to hear “I’m sorry your home life is like that. That’s not how it should be.” So I am always going to talk about it–all of it–in case anyone else wants to talk about it too. In case they feel like nobody could possibly understand what they’re living through. If I have to be the lunatic who tells the truth about ugly things so that someone else can feel less alone navigating their own ugly things? Done. I’m happy and honored to take that job, because I know how much it would have meant to me to have a resource like that when I was finding my way out. Like, I didn’t really know that my family was Not Like Other Families until probably my mid-twenties. No one ever said, “Wow, that’s fucked up.” It would have blown my goddamn mind. So yeah, I will always be the oversharing crazy lady who makes other people feel better about their problems. Or at least feel less alone. And that’s a pretty great job.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mariekuipers.com
• Instagram: @mkuipers
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1misanthropista/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marie-kuipers-7716891b/
• Twitter: @misanthropista
• Other: https://www.amazon.com/Were-All-Mad-Here-elegant/dp/1990700624/ref=sr_1_1?crid=IW49U0IXOANZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.TyarM4O62g6ILc_rvrnjBZ7M3o6ePK5zbBEY17G0zrk.biOWyTSnNFklH15p6MqAeTlqeP7Jkqoa8OCH5Z4FpDk&dib_tag=se&keywords=marie+kuipers+we%27re+all+mad+here&qid=1745621971&sprefix=%2Caps%2C418&sr=8-1

Image Credits

Gil Leora