If you walk into the office of ZLS Publishing, you will see on more than one wall, “Success Is My Best Revenge.” A little odd for a publishing company, but just right for this particular publishing company, ZLS Publishing. To know the reasoning behind this mantra, it is important for you to know the history of its CEO, Lishone’ Bowsky, and why she vows that with every breath she takes, every move she makes and with every author she works with, she is aiming for nothing less than success.
I use to get beat for my writings, that’s how I knew I had a talent. I was seven years old, the first beating I got. I can’t remember what exactly set off my former adopted mother, it was probably about her. From that point on, don’t let me get caught writing, it became world war two in the house. I would even go to the extent of hiding my writings under my mattress, but they’d even get found and I’d get beat. I even wrote a novel at seven, that got found, ripped up and I got beat. All the beatings never deterred me though. The more I got beat, the more I wanted to write. It was a form of defiance for me. I would write on anything and everything. I use to be forced to go to church and would write on the bulletins. Needless to say, they ended up in the trash before I got back to the house. My writings weren’t the only thing I got beat for and eventually got tired of the abuse and left that foster home. I ventured out on my own for a while before life happened and I ended up signing myself back into foster care. A diary was unheard of in any of my foster homes. They couldn’t stand that I was writing and always seemed to worry about what I was writing. One foster mother even said to me, “I don’t know why you bothering, you ain’t gonna be no writer, you ain’t gonna be nothing but the junky like your mama or the alchy like you dead beat daddy.” God, if I had a penny for every time I heard that or something similar telling me that I would amount to nothing, I’d be richer than Donald Trump right now.
Someone told me one day that I am resilient. I guess I was born that way. All I knew was that I was a fighter. I had to be. I was skinny and talented. People felt threatened by my talent, but felt powerful because of my size. I fought often as a kid. I had to, because I was fighting to survive. The thing about foster care is that if you don’t fight, then you will surely die. Either die a physical death or an emotional one, but either way you’ll die. I wasn’t ready to do what my grandmother had done, I was gonna live and be someone and hoped it killed everyone who doubted me in the process.
Once in a group home, there was one in particular, I got into a fight over my writing. I learned early on the power of the pen and used it. I documented everything: The staffs movements, the girls movements, my feelings about the girls and staff. One girl found it and wanted to fight. She was yelling at staff about how I shouldn’t be able to write about “her business.” She was pissed at the staff because they couldn’t do anything to stop me from writing. They couldn’t punish me, ground me, put me on restrictions or put their hands on me. We fought, she lost and I kept on writing.
My writing won me a writing contest and there my journey into publishing began. I won a writing contest for a publishing company in NYC called Youth Communications. They publish books and two magazines mainly for kids who were in the foster care system. I won a summer writing contest with them and got to write for their magazine, Foster Care Youth United, although now it’s called Represent. I won the opportunity to polish my writing skills and become published for the first time in my life. It was a big deal for me because their circulation is over 15,000. For a teenager, to be published with 15,000 people reading what you’ve written, was and is huge. I was addicted. I wrote for the magazine for 10 years and have been published in 5 of their books, and have had several of my stories reprinted in their magazines and workbooks.
My writing got me an article published in the 2002, Buffalo Law Review. I was a teenager writing for other legal minds to see. Success was becoming my best revenge. I was angry at the foster care system, angry at the foster homes I’d been in; angry at my biological mother for dying from the drugs she took; angry at my daddy for walking out on me, his only child, at a year old, angry but determined. There was a time when my haters got the best of me and I put the pen down and internalized it all. I just didn’t think I had it anymore. I don’t know where that came from. I think I was still busy fighting to survive and was getting tired of doing that. I was ready to live, I just didn’t know how. I was questioning God and everything else. I was going through homelessness, had fought of a rapist, was losing friendships, and realizing I was more mature than most and trying to figure out how to deal with that and what to do with it. It was the opportunity to do a book review for Youth Communications that made me pick up the pen again. While, I never did finish the book review as the story was about foster care and I wasn’t there yet, it did get me writing again. It was then that I realized that I could never allow anyone to take my power again.
My writing got me a fellowship within the New York State Assembly and several jobs with the last one being a Chief of Staff position for an Assemblywoman. It was here that I knew that a career in politics and law wasn’t what I was meant to do. I prayed about it and the idea to start a book publishing company came to me. After much research, I realized Albany, NY didn’t have any book publishing companies. They had printing presses, legal publishing and a yearbook publishing company but no book publishing companies. I vowed that I would be the first. I was known for being the first for things. I was the first one out of my biological family to graduate high school, college, and get a masters degree, let along two of them. I wanted to be the first African American Supreme Court Judge, but of course that didn’t happen. So, instead I decided, my company would be the first book publishing company that Albany had. If for some strange reason, some printing press fronting as a publishing company decided to come out the wood works claiming they were Albany’s first publishing company, we would be the first to be actually known worldwide. My goal is to not just be successful, but to give Random House, Simon & Schuster and Hartcourt a run for their money. For two years, I studied the publishing industry. I learned both sides, self-publishing and traditional publishing. I looked at what these companies did right and what they did wrong. I took that, as well as what I learned while working at Youth Communications and modeled my company after the things that are being done right on both sides. I was blessed at one point to have worked in the music industry in marketing and promotions. I decided to take what I learned from both industries and orchestrate into how we do business.
I’m very funny about the type of writers we accept. We don’t publish just for the sake of publishing, but want our writers to be brands, build businesses and develop product lines around their writings. Simon & Schuster, Random House and Hartcourt don’t do that. I’m not in the business of publishing just to do it. I’m doing it for the passion of not just me, but for the writers signed with me.
My foster care experience shaped me, made me, developed me and I am no longer mad about it. Instead, I have decided to take that anger and make it work for me. The desire to be successful drives me and is what will ensure that my authors are a success. Nothing less but success will do.
In an industry where they say success is never guaranteed, I differ. This is what I’m meant to do and because of that God will ensure that I am indeed successful as will those coming out of this company. I’m leaving a legacy to my child, so success is the only option. I’m leaving a legacy behind to the children of the authors I deal with, success is the only option. For those who hate on me, have hated on me, and will continue to hate on me and may possibly attempt to do things to get me down, my response to them, “success is my best revenge.”
The Dynasty!