Author: Nyx

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Happy Mail!

Happy mail!

You have to send mail to receive mail (is my general philosophy), so my post box has been a little quiet lately. However, I have been lucky enough to have received some awesome bits of happy mail recently.

happy-mail

This comes from a lovely new pen friend who discovered my profile on SendSomething. She also sent a little something for a friend of mine (Kim) who is dealing with cancer treatments at the moment. I love to see so much kindness still in the world, given how much we’re beaten over the head with how horrible humanity is.

property-zine

I had no idea this was coming and have my wonderful friend, Fishspit, to thank for recommending this site to the wonderful Property Zine masterminds. I was impressed from the get go with this zine, and they sent a sticker and letter, too!

They have an open call for submissions happening right now, so be sure to check out https://www.facebook.com/propertymaterials

My absolute thanks to all mail senders! You truly make my days happy.

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Done, Doing, Dreaming – The Catching Up Edition

sunshine-dog

Wanderer has been home for nearly a week, and the sunshine has broken through here and there. You can bet I keep shuffling him outside to sit in the sun when it’s there. The dogs – particularly my sunbather dog, Zenna – are loving it, too.

Done

*I now have a ‘guest’ section in the Zine Review Index. I’m thinking some more may be in order (in non-emergency circumstances).
*I’ve finally sorted out the problem of images not showing up on the blog until you clicked on the individual post. Of course, if you don’t visit the blog itself, then you may have never noticed. 😉

Doing

*I’ve been collecting statistics on the blog and whatnot because I love numbers, but I also want to do my best here. Of course, that involves more than numbers, but numbers are a start.
*Now that I’ve fallen WAY behind, it’s time to catch up on emails and reading lovely blogs.
*If you hadn’t already heard, We Make Zines – the place for all things zine – is closing down at the end of this month due to a dramatic rise in cost. I’m not able to do much, but if you know about coding and site migration, be sure to stop by this thread and let Quasifesto know that you’re willing to help out.

Dreaming

*All I’m dreaming of right now is a calm week.

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Call for Submissions: Waste Management

Hi, my name is Fee, I’m 20, white, ablebodied, working class, bisexual, queer, mentally ill, fat and I dropped out of high school in feburary of 2015.

I know a lot of people but I know exactly one who shares this experience. And I have the suspicion that I know why… I’m part of this beautiful social justice community that’s also incredibly centered on university level education. And I don’t even have a levels. (Or the German equivalent.) The people that mean the most to me can’t sympathise with the very real existential fear that comes from not having a high school diploma.

A lot of people drop out of uni. That’s bad. I feel for you guys, I do, but you have so many more options in how to continue. It might not feel like that but it’s true… but being a high school dropout? in this economy? It scares the shit out of you – especially because there is a reason you didn’t stay in school and that reasons stays with you. Bullying (because you are trans or queer or fat or disabled or a person of colour or poor or any other thing people can use to wear you down with every day microagressions), mental illness (like depression, an eating disorder, bpd, etc), money (because you and your family literally can’t afford for you to not work), teachers or social workers not caring about you and not giving you the support, equipment, form of schooling, medication or love you needed because of all the things the other students used to destroy you. Or any other number of other reasons.

And now you are a fucking high school drop out. (Or the pre-university level education equivalent where you are from. This is not supposed to be us centric.)

And I want to hear about it so badly! Whether you dropped out yesterday or 20 years ago, whether you regret it or not, wether you’re back in school or never looked back, whether you want to draw about it or write or make a collage or just paint an entire page black because that’s how it feels, I want to hear from you. And by you I mean literally everyone. (If you want to for example write in a language other than english we can also totally do that.) AND I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE INTERSECTION OF OPPRESSION AND DROPPING OUT! Because I’m 97% sure I would still be in school if I wasn’t, you know, me.

I’m not sure how this is going to work. I’ve never made a zine before but I need to fucking heal from this trauma that was school, so… hit me up, you beautiful failures and disappointments.

Who Can Submit?

Anyone who has ever dropped out of high school. It doesn’t matter if you went back and are now working on your doctorate or if you never looked back. You can submit regardless of your academic status now as long as you left schooling before reaching university level education at some point.

If you have questions wether you are enough of an academic failure to be able to submit, you can talk to me on tumblr, twitter or via email.

Note: Dropping out of university does not count.

What Can You Submit?

Short answer: everything.

Long answer: poetry, diary entries, comics, song lyrics, collages, paintings, drawings, doodles, in-depth analysis of things, top ten lists, hate mail to your teachers, manifestos and because there will be a digital version you can also submit songs, videos and any other digital art.

Go all out. Or go deep inside yourself.

It is really important to me that you get support and love throughout this process. If you need help working on your submission or just want to vent about the emotional build up that creating things can cause, don’t be shy to reach out to me on tumblr, twitter or via mail.

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Call for Submissions: Bi Focus #3

bi-focus-3

Submission Deadline: 30 November 2016
Find out if you’re in it by: 4 December 2016
Publication: 30 December 2016

Forms of submissions accepted: photos, paintings, comics, poetry, essays, personal stories – max four A5 pages per person (just to stop it being too bulky!). Please make sure it’s your own work and that you haven’t published it elsewhere. When submitting artwork, please consider that because this is printed at home, colours may not come out how they look on your screen at home.

Who can contribute: people who feel that they fall under the bi umbrella (e.g. you might identify as pansexual, bisexual, panromantic, biromantic, bicurious, polysexual, etc).

Topic: there is none! I mean, it still needs to relate to bi-ness e.g. review a tv show and how it portrays bi character/s, or talk about some shit you’ve dealt with due to being bi, or write a story about a bi penguin, or draw a comic about your first crush that made you realise you were bi, or take a photo of some bi peeps (get their permission to publish that pic too please!).

Pay: AUD$5 per contributor (this is an experimental payment for this third issue to see if this is sustainable, I really want to be able to pay people for their work)

Profits (if there are any): will go to charity – all profits from all my zines and art get split between animal and human rights charities.

You can submit by sending me a message on facebook, or emailing me at khuolohan@yahoo.com.au. All contributors will get a free copy mailed out to them/to pick up :).

Please note: I will be selling this at Junky Comics, in my etsy store, and at zine fairs so if you want, feel free to use a fake name or no name if this makes you feel safer. After it has been printed and sent out, I will not be able to change these details.

Previous issues available here: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/ZinesByKeira

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Guest Zine Review: Wiseblood #65 The Pussy Whipped Again Issue Reviewed by Bloodfreak

wiseblood-65-zine-cover-art

Zines have entered a very sad period; the saddest in the history of zines. The zine world has been taken over by liberals who spout the same nonsense incessantly. There was a day when zines covered every walk of life and included incredibly diverse opinions. Alas, that day is gone.

But with Fishspit’s “Pussy Whipped Again” issue of his Wiseblood (started in 1984!), we finally get “notes from the underground.” This is something truly different.

This zine records Fishspit’s struggle to put a zine out that upsets the so called “modern liberal” with their incredible closed mindedness. Liberalism, by its nature, is supposed to be a system of values which is based in open-mindedness. But they’ve somehow warped liberalism into an actual intolerant fascism. It’s truly amazing!

It has delightful collage work that expresses just what it means to be pussy-whipped, and just what it means to not be. It has a sensationally funny story about Fishspit slapping a female cat on her ass and the unbelievably whacky consequences. It also has the truly entertaining story of a fellow taking a date to the zoo, and having a giraffe sneeze an amazing amount of snot in her face, and the farcical results of just such absurdity.

You won’t find anything like it in the countless zine drivel by the “Oh! We’re so oppressed” zesters. (To give an example I recently received a zine with an entire content arguing that white female feminists were not true feminists because of their privilege! Who wants to read that nonsense?!)

It is unbelievably refreshing to have a zine like this! I give a nod and a wink to Fishspit for his bravery to keep putting out zines that are going to be unpopular with the zine status quo. This sort of zine is the true “underground” in the modern zine scene.

wiseblood-art

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Take A Breath

I’m in this weird space where it feels like it’s been both a long time and no time at all since I last sat down to write a regular blog post for this blog.

Not that this is going to be regular as such. Anyway.

I was going to write a ‘Done, Doing, Dreaming’ post, but it didn’t feel quite right for this sort of catch up. I’m sitting in a strange place, mentally, and I really just want to do with the flow.

nyx-and-her-wanderer

Eight days after being admitted for emergency surgery to remove his ruptured and abscessed appendix, I was able to bring Wanderer home. The space inbetween was confronting, to say the least, with Wanderer’s complications both leaving us terrified that he might lose his life. (There were a lot of ‘we’re not sure what’s going wrong with him’ times.) The important thing is that he didn’t, and he’s okay. But neither of us want to pretend that it didn’t happen, so we’re taking the mentality adjustments slowly.

I want to give my heartfelt thanks to everyone who guest posted, liked guest posts, and/or sent best wishes in one way or another. I appreciate it more than words can say.

There is another guest zine review going up this week, and then I hope to get back into a regular schedule – at least so far as the reviews go – next week. I am very thankful to past Nyx (haha) for working so hard on the weekend calls for submissions so those stayed (and will stay) as normal. Regular posts should come back next week as well, but I don’t want to make any promises while we’re not fully settled.

To those who have asked, Wanderer is doing quite well now that he’s at home. When he made (and succeeded) in his third go at recovery, he quickly became eager to come home. He’s settled in quick and is already moving around a lot better than I thought he would be at this point.

Thank you everyone again. I look forward to getting back up to speed here and to applying the lessons learned about not having ‘spare’ emergency posts just in case…

Best wishes.

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Guest Zine Review: The 5 Cent News #3 Reviewed by Bubble Puppy

the-5-cent-news

Ed Tillman’s delightful little photo zine “The 5 Cent News” will take you back to better times. Maybe better times never existed, but when you look at Ed’s zine you’ll believe they did. Ed’s photos somehow bring on a sense of satisfying nostalgia. From the really cool little band that slips over the contents, to the wonderful silence that permeates the photos, this zine will zap you into a childlike feeling of wonder. The zine just has a way of making you feel good.

edtillman.net