Author: Nyx

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New Zine Announcement: Intimacies 1 & 2

One thing I have wanted to do for a long time here is dedicate space to people who want to announce their new zines. Dara got in touch and gave me the perfect opportunity. If you’d like to announce your zine, zines, or zine project, let me know!

Intimacies Vol 1 & Vol 2

Available at Big Cartel | Intimacies Tumblr

I grew up on romcoms, Sweet Valley High, and friends who rotated merrily through a carousel of crushes. I grew up Muslim, sheltered, and shy. I was taught to see kissing and dating and sex and all the acts that came attached as rites of passage, and it seemed everyone else was breezing through them while I graduated high school and college, got my first job, and then my second, saw birthday after birthday pass wondering, “Is something wrong with me? Am I being left behind?“

This zine explores my journey with physical intimacy, touch, and sex through thirty something short essays of varying length. Volume 1’s first section spans years, moments where I questioned and struggled with the concept of intimacy, grew and unlearned, felt sadness, loneliness, angst, anger, suspicion, fatigue, yearning. The second section explores the beginning of things starting to change, to make more sense, to become queerer, where I started being able to find ways to be intimate outside of the scripts that always excluded me.

It took me a long time to understand I was angry at the smallness of sex, or sex as I was taught to know it – the rigidity, the binary nature, the heteronormativity, the schedule we’re all meant to follow, the judgment and shame and guilt, the divisions between the romantic, the platonic, and the sexual. I tried to shake it off, focused on owning my own story and my own body, on learning myself out of the shadow of “sex”. Of course, with hindsight working how it does, I didn’t know then that what I was doing was also making myself ready to engage with physical intimacy on my own terms.

This zine explores my journey with physical intimacy, touch, and sex through thirty something short essays of varying length. Volume 2 mostly covers a three month period that starts with a few significant and altering conversations, followed by experiences of navigating physical intimacy and how it folded in with the stories I wanted to have in my life — a series of many firsts in all shapes.

Be sure to check out Intimacies Vol 1 and Vol 2 at Big Cartel and on Tumblr.

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Happy Mail Monday: Sneaky Tea Edition

Hello, zine friends! I hope you’ve had a beautiful start to the week. It’s a bit toasty around these parts, but it is spring after all.

Now you’re probably wondering how tea can be sneaky, so let’s get into this week’s beautiful zine mail!

Please don’t let my lack of skill with my camera take away from how gorgeous this card and envelope is. It’s so pretty with so much green!

Emma from Puddleside Musings was so kind to send me a card to brighten my day as well as help me relax with some tea. There was another packet of tea as well, but I may have already indulged before I took the picture… (What? I like vanilla chai. Hehe.)

This sneaky tea is sneaky because usually customs gets really cranky and sends me mean letters when people send me tea (Australia says no to tea – go figure), but these two came through! They did open the envelope, the cheeky people, but the tea managed to arrive in my post box safe and sound.

Therefore, I have dubbed them sneaky teas – but not so sneaky that they can escape me. (I’m looking at you, cinnamon tea!)

Thank you so much to Emma who sent me such lovely mail all the way from Ireland. It made my day and was relaxing as well.

That’s me for today! I have something a little different for you all tomorrow, so be sure to come back and check it out. Until then!

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Zine Review: Tessellations

Tessellations
Dystatic – dystatic@gmail.com
Fishspit – fuzzybunnyflatbunny@gmail.com
Big Tight – mm12716@me.com

I’ve never reviewed a zine that has left me so conflicted as to whether I want to look at it or play with it…

Tessellations is a fun collection of photos, collages, and other art in black in on colour paper. I may as well get right into the aesthetics of it, because when you get your hands on this zine, you can’t possibly miss it.

It opens up! Well, of course it opens up, but it opens up in fun and interesting ways because it’s make of individually folded pieces of paper glued together.

I almost feel like this is as much a toy as it is a zine. With the colours and the way the papers are folded, I’ve flipped through it many, many times now. Sometimes to check out the art, other times to check out the folding, and still yet just to have fun with it. Each colour is like its own chapter, its own little world.

Not that I’ve found any story or linear thought process with it overall, but I honestly don’t need it or care. What one square or piece may lack is made up for by the enjoyment of the whole. I enjoy this zine for what it is.

I really like how you open up the last page, and each person who contributed to the whole has a square with their contact details on it. This definitely goes to the top of the list in regards to creative contact details. The only hiccup is that Dystatic does have a website, but part of it got lost in the ink of the print.

This is the kind of zine if you are like me in that you need reminding sometimes that zines are never and will never be just one thing. I want to keep it on my desk, but I feel like it will distract me all the time for want of playing with it. Haha.

Grab a copy, and let it inspire you.

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Zine Review: Pieces #13 on being a romantic asexual

Pieces #13 on being a romantic asexual
Nichole
https://www.etsy.com/shop/collectingwords
IG: @corridorgirl

Pieces #13 is a black and white quarter-sized perzine “on being a romantic asexual” that also serves as an introduction to asexuality and the asexuality spectrum.

I hardly know where to start with Pieces #13. It’s one of those zines that I absolutely devoured and that left me with so, so much to think about. I like perzines, and I like learning things. This zine happened to be an intense combination of both.

Aesthetically, Nichole’s zines have always been appealing to me (as mentioned in reviews of previous Pieces reviews). I do so love a thick quarter-sized zine, and I like how the cut and paste style is fun but not overly distracting from the writing.

Oh, the writing.

Nichole manages to be frustrated, informative, vulnerable, and many other things, all within one zine. While the pieces do cut from one to another – the intro being distinctly perzine, the laments being vulnerable, and the FAQ/comments responses being a mixture of many things. Nichole doesn’t need to say the obvious because feelings come through so clearly in the writing.

There is a section in the back where Nichole responds to questions and comments regarding asexuality. I felt so, so frustrated that people could say and ask those things. At the same time, I have to respect Nichole for addressing them anyway.

I found the spectrum of asexuality absolutely fascinating. Like many (I imagine), I was part of the problem in that I only ever saw it as the ‘you don’t’ side of ‘you do or you don’t’ when it comes to sex. I had no idea that there’s not only a spectrum but that there are other names as well. Thanks to this zine, I’ve not only learned things about asexual people but may have clarified a thing or two for myself as well.

I think this is a great resource not only for people who are still figuring out the facets of their asexuality but also for anyone who has even a little open mindedness in learning more about asexuality. It’s a zine I want everyone to know about because I know it’ll be valuable to those who are looking for zines on the subject (and more beyond them).

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New Zine Announcement: Paper Currency

Hello, zine friends! I am very, very happy to announce that Paper Currency is finally ready to be properly launched.

A zine for the love of zines. <3 Inside you will find zinemakers from around the world telling the stories of their first zines, zine reviews from yours truly, a section filled with fliers from zinemakers, distros, and more, and even an 'up for trades' section that you can join in on.

The recent price hikes from AusPost are a mood killer, that’s for sure, but I won’t let that stop me from keeping on keeping on.

Paper Currency is meant to be a free zine.

Unfortunately, you can’t offer things for free on Etsy, which is why it’s listed there for $1. If you do buy it on Etsy, the cost will go right back into Etsy fees, paper, and ink.

If you’d like to skip the $1 and pay only for shipping (and give Etsy the finger in the process), then you can get it directly from me.

Okay, so shipping is now $9 because Australia Post is insane BUT you can also whack more zines in there (up to 250g worth of zines) for the same shipping costs. There’s nothing I can do about the shipping, but I can at least get the most out of it.

I would have preferred a launch that included doughnuts, but what can you do? Read on, zine friends, and have a wonderful day!

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Postage Cost Headaches

Hello, zine friends. I hope the start of this week finds you well.

Alas, I have no mail to share, but as I always say, you need to send mail to receive it, and I haven’t been sending much recently. That may be more common in the future, though.

The day started off on an upsetting note. I went into the post office to find that Australia Post had raised their prices. Again.

I won’t get into the numbers of it because they are boring, and I’ll get annoyed all over again. I’m so tired of so many things – small in the grand scheme of it all – being prohibited by the love of profit.

I started making PDFs to give postage prices the finger, but now I think I need to figure out something more. Get the most out of the postage.

I just don’t know what yet. All I know is that I don’t think many people will want to pay $9 AUD shipping on top of a $4 AUD zine. (Some of my zines are less, but most weigh 56 grams – 90 grams.)

I do hate to leave things on a negative note, though – especially at the beginning of the week. So I leave you with the promise to do my absolute best to figure out something. I won’t have Australia Post stopping me from doing what I love.

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Zine Review: Strictly Ballroom: A Fan Zine

Strictly Ballroom: A Fan Zine
Larua Bibby
www.bloomurder.etsy.com
bloomurder@gmail.com

I feel a little weird reviewing a fan zine. It almost feels like someone professing to love doughnuts, and me saying things like, “I really like how you express your love for doughnuts… but where are the contact details for people who want to know more?” That being said…

Strictly Ballroom is a full-colour mini fanzine about the classic Australian romantic comedy by Baz Luhrmann.

Laura starts off the zine by lamenting about not seeing this movie sooner (it’s from 1992) and all the good times missed (oh, I do so love a twirly skirt as well). As much as I understand Laura’s pain, I have to say that I really love that this is a fanzine borne not of years and years of love but of discovering something and loving it so intensely from the get go that she made a zine about it. There’s just so much energy and excitement in Laura’s writing that I can’t help but feel like I need to get my hands on the movie and watch it again straight away!

Laura launches into five reasons why you should give the movie a go (or a rewatch if you’ve already seen it). I had to laugh when Laura got to talk about Fran’s character and got so excited that she wrote about the possibility of a zine dedicated just to Fran. It was almost like talking to someone who is so excited about something that they can hardly finish one sentence before starting the next.

Strictly Ballroom isn’t comprised only of the list, though, but I’ll leave the other contents for you to discover.

This zine has left me feeling pretty upbeat, energetic, and inspired. I love all the energy and delight Laura has put into this zine, and I think you should check it out.