Month: March 2017

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Call for Submissions: True Trans Bike Rebel (Taking the Lane #15)

Taking the Lane #15 is called True Trans Bike Rebel, and we are looking for nonfiction writing about the experience of being transgender and bicycling. Submissions can be essays or reporting about bicycling, or other topics or stories in which bicycles play a part (or other human-powered transportation).

Submissions can be any length; word count between 500 and 2500 words is ideal for this format. Single-color illustrations and photos are also sought. Please submit your work as an attachment or link in an email to elly at taking the lane dot com. The deadline is July 1, 2017.

All contributors will be paid a share of the net profits from the Kickstarter project used to fund the zine.

Taking the Lane is a feminist bicycle zine published since 2010.

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Zine Review: Nora’s New Home

Nora’s New Home
Heidi M
heidimmcdonald.blogspot.com

Nora’s New Home is a very cute mini-zine about Heidi’s new cat, Nora.

I have a soft spot for zines about cats – especially ones with cute illustrations. Taking a peek inside after unfolding it, I think the ink bleedthrough means that these are hand-coloured, too! The art style is very cute.

This zine is very short and sweet, but it did pluck at my heart strings – especially when Nora turned out to be a shy cat. (Definite ‘awww’ moment.)

This is a feel good zine that made me smile, and that’s something I greatly appreciate.

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I’m at The Melbourne Art Book Fair!

Okay, so I’m not there yet. I’m actually on the train right now on my way to the Art Book Fair, but I will be there soon! More specifically, I will be at a table from 1.30 to 5pm.

I will have copies of all the Dear Anonymous zines, all the Don’t Call Me Cupcake zines, Umbrella, Hairy, and DAFUQ. I’ll be launching Don’t Call Me Cupcake 7 as well as this little beauty…

Yep. A zine dedicated to my favourite swear, now and forever.

While I’ll definitely be there today, I’ll see how I go about getting back down to Melbourne tomorrow and/or Sunday. I won’t be tabling those days, but that will mean more time and ability to wander. (And check out your awesome zines if you’re tabling.)

Please note: I am terrified. I’m sweating, my eyes are red because what’s better than crying when you’re anxious, and I’m just trying to breathe. Some of this you may see, some of this you may not. Just know that I want to say hello, and I want to meet and be friendly because I am totally friendly. But I’m also dealing with this irrational fear of other human beings as well as anything I may say or do when I’m not feeling in control of myself.

Please don’t take it personally if I’m horrible with names or I glisten with the light of one thousand suns because anxiety heats me up like an oven in Alice Springs during summer.

I love zines. I love zine people. My lizard brain just happens to think that everything outside my door is going to crush me into tiny particles of fear and sweet potatoes.

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Zine Review: The 125th Street Demon

The 125th Street Demon
Robert Walton
www.moreverbs.com

The 125th Street Demon is a short fiction zine featuring a short story about a man on a train…

I quite like the formatting for this zine. I know this is going to get me in hot water for some crowds saying this, but it’s formatted like a book. Not to the extent of title pages and dedications, but the font, the drop cap… Book layout and styling is something I love doing, so I can’t help but noticing the qualities. (Admittedly the drop cap doesn’t quite make sense in all its uses, but I still like the look of it.)

The one thing I didn’t like – and I know I’m being a bit picky here – is the way it’s stapled. The staple ‘teeth’ face outward instead of into the halfway mark. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but I did get poked. Something to consider if you staple your zines.

The story itself is an interesting one. You start questioning whether you should be trusting the protagonist at all and whether the man is unhinged. The ending leaves you satisfied but with a few questions – questions I’m happy to leave unanswered.

If you like fiction zines and slightly weird/unnerving stories, then I think you’ll like this zine.

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Zine Review: ADL —> MEL

ADL —> MEL
Rebecca Sheedy
http://mildscribblings.tumblr.com
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/rebeccasaurusrex

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Rebecca Sheedy’s art style? No? Well here we go…

ADL —> MEL is a short zine about flying from Adelaide to Melbourne for a short stay during Festival of the Photocopier 2016. I almost hesitate to say ‘during the Festival of the Photocopier 2016’ because while that may be the reason for the trek, it’s only a part of things.

You follow Rebecca’s journey with brief commentary from Thursday the 11th to Tuesday the 16th. As I mentioned, Festival of the Photocopier is a part of the events, with various zine launches as well as the main event zine fest itself. But no one thing gets too much attention. It’s all like cliff notes, and you follow along with what is shared both in words and images.

Taking it back out for a moment, I really like the cover. It’s a really nice touch in that it’s a copies plane ticket cut out and pasted to tan cardstock. It’s very unassuming and simple, which makes the colour and detail of everything inside pop all the more.

Rebecca’s art style is so simple on first glance, but then you realise just how detailed it is. From polka dots on pants to the tiny zine covers. It’s so fun. There are times when things are perfectly enjoyable whether they are in colour or in black and white, but I feel like Rebecca made absolutely the right choice by going full colour because it only adds to the awesomeness that is the Sheedy style.

This zine is a ‘slice of life’ zine in its truest form. I think based on that alone, you should have a good feeling of whether or not you’ll enjoy this zine. If you’re at all unsure, then definitely check out Rebecca’s zines. (My favourite is ‘X‘ about growing up with The X-Files.)

Rebecca’s zines have always been and will always be zines that reside in my forever collection in the ‘not for borrows because you might lose them’ section.

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Prep for the Melbourne Art Book Fair Zine Fest

Wowza. So much work to do and never enough time to do it!

Sticky Institute (ardent defenders of zine culture since 2001) has been invited by the National Gallery of Victoria to run a zine fair in conjunction with their Melbourne Art Book Fair, taking place between Friday 17 – Sunday 19 March 2017.

Sea Green Zines will be participating(!) as part of one hundred zine makers Sticky has invited to display and sell their work at the 2017 Melbourne Art Book Fair. This showcase will present Melbourne’s vibrant DIY publishing community alongside zines from around Australia.

The zine fair will be happening in the ‘kitchen space’ between the gift shop and the Great Hall.

(Here is the Facebook link for the Sea Green Zines-specific event.)

Things have been in an absolute flurry around SGZ headquarters as I print copies, covers, and labels as well as do soooooo much sewing and folding.

So much of all the things. When you have seven of one zine series, six of another, and a few one-off zines, even doing a few copies of each one quite quickly turns into a huge stack of work.

Wanderer is so awesome, though, and knows that I will work and work while forgetting everything else, so he kept the coffee flowing. Later in the day…

…he set up a little ‘relax retreat’ in the back yard. <3 That guy.

This is the stack of sewing that I finished at twenty minutes past midnight last night. Ooof!

There’s still a stack of things to do, which is why I might not be the best at keeping up with pretty much every other facet of my life. Reviews will still be going up this week, but there will be delays in email or other message responses.

Aaaaand, just as a little sneaky…

You all know how much I absolutely adore zines, and I am absolutely tickled that Sticky invited me to table at this event. I will have all my zines there for your purchasing pleasure.

However, given it’s the art book fair… I will also have a few copies of my novel, Dark Echoes, there, too. You can get a signed copy for your awesome self. I’ll pop the synopsis at the end of this post. (Yes, it’s the third in a series, but it can be read as a standalone.)

Well, that’s me for now.

Dark Echoes

LONE WOLF

Lily Peterson is a wolf who hunts alone. Haunted by the attack that left her best friend permanently human, she will do whatever it takes to catch her prey.

FATE

Jason North is one of the Neuri, a pack of werewolves with special abilities. He knows he’s never met Lily before, but his instincts tell him he has. He’ll keep her close until he figures out why.

EVERYBODY LIES

A war that has played out across lifetimes threatens to consume Echo Falls. Friends become enemies, and old enemies become allies. Lily fights against memories that aren’t hers, forced toward a fate she doesn’t believe in.

Fate is about to learn that Lily doesn’t like being told what to do.

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Happy Mail – Snail Mail Edition (+ Bonus Puns)

Happy mail!

It’s a public holiday here in Victoria, but I got out to the post box on Friday and found some wonderful goodies waiting for me. Yes, mail is still just as (if not more so) exciting as it was when I was a kid. I love it so much!

First up is a lovely postcard from one of the contributors to Umbrella – the PCOS zine sent as a thank you for the zine. That’s so sweet, and it truly brightened my day.

This zine comes all the way from Singapore – and check out that envelope art. Hehe. It’s so fun to see unexpected colours, drawings or other envelope art. This zine is actually a short screenplay – a first of its kind for zines I’ve read.

(PS. Get it? Snail mail? Snaaaaail mail? 🙂 )

The last piece of fun mail to come my way is from my penpal Misti. I hated to bend the letter like that, but I had to show you what she did! She actually turned her letter into a little booklet with the map serving as the cover. What a cool idea, yes?

That’s me for now. A busy week ahead prepping for the zine fair in Melbourne on Friday.

Many, many thanks to those who take the time and effort to brighten my post box and my day.

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Calling Zine Makers, Libraries, Distros, And the Like

I’m at the very beginning stages of working on a new zine project. As part of this, I would like to include A5/A6 spaces (maybe even A7, if that works for you) that feature things like:

*Zines that have a rolling call for submissions (even if your zine changes theme/topic from issue to issue, an overarching ‘flier’ for the whole series would be awesome)
*Zine distros – whether you want to say ‘check out my distro’, are looking for zines to sell in your distro, or both!
*Zine libraries – again, whether it’s a ‘check us out’, ‘looking for zine donations’, or both, I’d love to see it
*Zine people who want to be included in an ‘open to trades’ section. I’m thinking name, preferred contact (or your mailing addy, if that’s the way you roll), and a few likes/dislikes.

The key thing here is that things be ‘undated’ (hence sharing a zine series rather than one specific call for submissions) so things aren’t out of date before I get the chance to create the thing.

Ideally, I’d like things to be images with text on them because of the limited space involved (with the exception of the trades section, which will be text only). But I want to be flexible, too. This project is really in its early days, so I’m still figuring a lot out.

If you want to get involved straight away (please do!) then you can shoot me an email (theauthor at inkyblots.com)

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Call for Submissions: Cat & Dog Zine

pawprints

Looking for:
*stories (up to 500 words)
*poems (page in length)
*artwork
*love letters

Topics may include:
-how they came to be in your life
-their therapeutic presence
– how they help ease your anxiety, depression and provide comfort
-the special bond you share
-their unconditional love
-the playful/weird/cute things they do
-if they are a service dog/cat
-if they have a physical disability, mental illness and/or health issues
-do you refer to them as your: pet, baby/child/family, companion, friend/best friend, room mate, healer, etc.
-if you have more than one cat or dog
-anything else you wish to share about them

Contributors will receive a free issue of the zine upon completion.
If interested, email Xyendrarocks44@hotmail.com