Call for Submissions: All In Your Head Issue 8: To The Bone

[Image Description: drawing of a skeleton arching their back and tilting head backward. Text reads: call for submissions. Issue #8: To The Bone”]

Call for Submissions!

All in Your Head is a queer/feminist traditional cut-and-paste style zine with a focus on LGBTQIA neurodivergent and disabled activists, zinesters, artists, and authors, sponsored by GlitterWurst Zine Distro. Our zine operates on the following *principles:

1.) social inequality and injustice exists [racism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, cissexism to name a few];
2.) disability, neurodiversity can be understood as a viable form of human difference that intersects with/is shaped by systems of dominance;
3.) claims that there is a “normal” bodymind can have damaging and harmful effects (physically/emotionally/spiritually) and are partly shaped by current social/cultural values and white western colonial histories;
4.) neuroqueer and disabled people must navigate cultural taboos, move among complex institutions and systems of care and negotiate conflicting ideas of “wellness/illness,“ “silence/disclosure,” “visibility/invisibility;” “dis/ability” and more
5.) most importantly, our stories matter. (*this list is by no means exhaustive)

We are seeking submissions for issue #8 of All in Your Head: TO THE BONE: OUR QUEER CRIP BODIES, OURSELVES. We accept many kinds of submissions including but not limited to: essays, short stories, poems, personal narratives, manifestos, rants, drawings, doodles, illustrations, photography, collage, book or movie reviews (related to the theme), song lyrics, playlists, short plays/monologues and more! We resist the notion that there is such as thing as a “good writer/good artist” and seek to dismantle, critique, and challenge that “good writing/good art” means from a queer, disabled, neurodivergent perspective.

Some possible topics for TO THE BONE may include:
-Reclaiming and living in our bodies which exist at the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, disability, size, and a multitude of other differences.
-Visceral knowing, alternative modes of thinking, perceiving, feeling via a queer crip, neuroqueer bodymind.
-Queer disabled engagements with artistic or spiritual bodily movement and practice such as: dance, yoga, theater, slam poetry, film, singing (and others!).
-Critiques of and engagements with the notion of “transcending disability.”
-Explorations of the mindbody split trough the lens of disability.
-Analyses of disability, passing, and embodiment.
-The rhetoric of “loss” and disabled embodiment (i.e.: “sight loss,” “loss of limbs”).
-Queer disability, pleasure, body erotics.

*Deadline: February 28th, 2018
*Send submission and bio to: allinyourheadzine@gmail.com
*Please limit your submissions to approximately 1500 words and/or send high quality images of your artwork/photography. *We enthusiastically welcome and prioritize submissions by queer, trans, and disabled IPOC.

All contributors will receive a free copy in the mail!

Zine Review: Brainscan 33 DIY Witchery: An Exploration of Secular Witchcraft

Brainscan 33 DIY Witchery: An Exploration of Secular Witchcraft
Alex Wrekk
Upthewitchypunx.tumblr.com

There are infinite ways to witch…

Brainscan 33 is a black (sometimes brown) and white zine that combines info zine and perzine in explorations of secular witchcraft.

I usually mention the aesthetics of zines further into a review, but I really have to start with it this time. Brainscan 33 is the only zine that I have spent just as much time petting and flipping through as I did reading it. From the acorns charm held on by lavender string used to sew the binding to the few different kinds of papers inside, you may find yourself facing the longest commentary on look and feel that you’ve ever written…

I am new to witchcraft but have a keen interest in learning more about it. It’s with that feeling that I approached reading this zine – and I wasn’t disappointed.

Alex starts with a fantastic introduction that states in no uncertain terms that this zine does no exist to convince you, sway you, or otherwise establish a ‘right’ way to witch. While such a strong ‘take it or leave it’ kind of opening can be a little chancy with readers, I think it’s fantastic. It establishes Alex’s desire to share a viewpoint and a story. It’s an invitation rather than a command.

From the introduction, we go into definitions – something I loved and something I’m glad Alex went into first. They served the double purpose of not only making it clear the viewpoint Alex is writing from but also giving you (if you want) a place to start figuring out your own definitions for where you stand.

Brainscan 33 is packed with information – perhaps even more than its 64 pages implies. Alex writes about history, about definitions, and about both the good as well as the not so great. There are clarifications of similarities and differences in witchcraft, religion, Wiccan, and more.

There’s even a ‘Witching Tips’ in the centre of the zine. Very well placed, if you ask me, because one point directly answered a question that had literally just come to my mind moments before I started reading the answer. If that’s not good pacing, I don’t know what is.

Where the information found in this zine certainly drew me in and kept me reading, it’s Alex’s personal ‘witch-jectory’ story that really made me feel a lot of things. I found it easy to identify with life stages like the moment you realise that you can “just do the thing” without permission or a mentor or anyone else. Or how there are times when you need to reclaim a physical space.

I think it’s pretty clear at this point that I have really enjoyed this zine and will be coming back to it in the future. I could keep going on about it, but I think it’s important to leave at least something to be discovered. Haha.

Thank You

I want to write a thank you to everyone for your understanding yesterday. The comments and well wishes were absolutely lovely.

Because I believe in being more open about mental illness and ending stigmas, I will share that I seem to be having some bad, cumulative side effects to my medications. It left me feeling exhausted and ill yesterday.

My new GP and I are going to switch things up and address how to take on things in the long term. Meds are all too often trial and error, but at least now we know.

Thank you again, everyone. In the end, a review may be a small thing, but they are very important to me. I hate missing a day no matter what the circumstances, but it helps to know that people understand.

With that said, I should get back to it and type up my notes! Back soon with a review (the last for 2017!).

Hiccup in the Force

I apologise, zine friends. I don’t have a review for you today. I’m not feeling well, but fingers crossed I’ll be right as rain and back to it tomorrow. 

Enter Title Here

Hello, zine friends. I hope you are well.

I don’t actually know what I cant to say today. I just keep feeling the urge to post something even though no topic has bubbled to the surface. Usually the topic idea is followed by the urge to write, but here we are.

I feel fairly unprepared for the new year and yet strangely okay with that. 2018 starting on a Monday (oh, how I do starting things on a Monday) should have me ramped up for all sorts of plans and dreams, lists and to-dos, but I’m not there.

I am excited for the new year. Where Christmas feels strange and is emotionally confusing, New Year’s Eve is probably my favourite holiday. I love fresh starts nearly as much as I love zines. Alas, most of my time has been taken up with planning a fairly big project I hope to release into the wild in the next month or so – and I’m okay with that.

I do hope for big, wonderful things in the new year. I hope We Make Zines comes back stronger than ever after the hiccup recently. I hope new podcast Long Arm Stapler goes on to see success. I also hope to see @FANZINE‘s Zine World Calendar gets filled with even more zine events around the world.

I hope things go well for you. Yes, you. You who haven’t dozed off before this point. I wish the best for you in all the years to come, but I know 2017 was difficult for too many people. So I wish you such a wonderful year where you can feel safe, calm, and cared about.

I will be back tomorrow and Friday with the usual schedule. I just needed a ramble, as people sometimes do. Here’s to rambling and the hopes of some random person in South Australia.

Happy Mail Monday (on Tuesday): Boxing Day Edition

Hello, zine friends!

Whether you are celebrating or not celebrating, I hope the start to your week was wonderful and filled with good things. I spent my day brainstorming and then watching 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Not too shabby.

I didn’t think that any mail would come through in the days leading up to Christmas, but lo and behold! Magnificent happy mail, my friends. Wonderful, lovely, complete surprise happy mail. I love it.

Okay, I tell a smidge of a lie in that this package of zine bliss was expected, but I didn’t know it was going to be zines! Oh, the zine love. This pack of zines from Mel at Swap-Bot were – you guessed it – part of a swap. I do profess my love for zines on my profile there, and it was so lovely to see these in the mail. Thank you so much to Mel for being such a great swapping partner.

Another surprise! I didn’t know what to make of this lovely parcel in my postbox, and it turned out to be one of the top combos out there – zines and washi tape! Love it! This pile of happiness came from Debbie Ann who will be leaving our sunny shores and thought I might like some goodies. That I certainly do, Debbie. Thank you so much for your generosity, and best wishes for your adventures outside Australia.

That’s me for today. It’s a toasty one here in the Bridge of Murray, and I’m trying to stay cool in my little office space.

I truly wish you all the best in this, a season of silliness but also often of sadness. I understand what it’s like for this time of year to be confusing and complicated. Know that you’re not alone.

Until next time…