Author: Nyx

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Call for Submissions: Dear Anonymous 4

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Dear Anonymous has a rolling, open submission, so you can submit your letters at any time!

DA4 is on its way, and you still have time to get your letters in. These letters can be confessionals, but they can also be whatever you like them to be. Write to your life, write to your cat, write to your past or your future… Dear Anonymous is about writing the letters of the things you can’t say for whatever reason.

Basically, you’re right in the 1 – 500 words range, but shorter is better. BUT, this zine is about expression, and I don’t want to force anyone to clamp down on their passion just for me. I’m flexible.

Send letters to theauthor at inkyblots.com If I don’t respond to you within a few days, comment here.

All contributors will receive a PDF copy. (Possibly a print copy depending on my financial status at the time of printing.)

*** Do you have a call for submissions for your zine? Let me know!

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Zine Review: How to Save Your Life for Later 1

How to Save Your Life for Later

How to Save Your Life for Later 1
Jess Freedom
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/JessFreedomZine

First, I’m going to apologise for the pictures to come. I am usually really good with wielding my camera phone, but, you know, stuff. Plus, I totally snaffled the picture above from Jess Freedom’s Etsy store because I cannot find the pic I took of the cover. 🙁

Moving along!

The first thing that is going to stand out to you about this zine is COLOUR! There is so much colour on the cover, and I love it. Here, check out the back:

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I opened that beautiful cover to find that the interior pages had been printed on some lovely higher-than-usual GSM paper. It was that little bit smoother to the touch, and I felt like I was getting into magazine territory. Then I came to flip through the pages and realised that that was an accurate thought indeed.

How to Save Your Life for later is filled everything from recipes to poetry, thoughts on parenting to Jess’ interviews with herself (fun idea!). This is not a zine you sit down and read in three minutes (nothing against those – I love them, too!). Even having flipped through the pages, I was still surprised at just how much Jess had crammed into this zine about life. At the same time, I didn’t at all feel like she had too much to say or that too much had been put into the zine. It all… worked.

She talks a bit about intuitive eating and parenting – two things that are way out of my spectrum. That being said, she wrote in a style that kept me reading about these things anyway. Sure, I don’t have kids, but I began to wonder: if I did, would I let them watch TV? How would I feel about that? I have food issues like you wouldn’t believe and am SO not in a place to approach intuitive eating, but I found her thoughts around the practice/philosophy interesting.

At no point is Jess Freedom afraid to state her opinions on things, and I really admire that. My writing/typing is always riddled with ‘a bit’, ‘a little’, ‘perhaps’, etc because I am not a confident person. So I really take notice when someone is able to put things on paper without leaving those ‘wiggle room’ types of phrases. I wasn’t always right on her bandwagon, but I appreciated her presenting her ideas with such strength (but none of that MY WAY IS THE ONLY WAY stuff you see elsewhere).

If you’ve read my reviews before, you know that I can go on and on about contact details. WELL. Talk about the Holy Grail of contact pages. Even my blurry photography doesn’t mask the awesomeness of Jess’ contact page.

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There’s even an order page!

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All up, I really enjoyed my experience reading this zine. There is a stack of content, an admirable amount of cut/paste/draw work involved, a wide variety of things to read about, a table of contents! While I do feel this zine lends itself more to certain crowds, there are definitely lessons in zine-making to be found for all zine makers.

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It’s Thursday?!

So, it’s Thursday. I thought it was only Tuesday.

Oops.

I’m my defense, I am rocking ear infections by sporting two at once, and I did sleep almost an entire day away. BUT I have been getting stuff done. Like some letter art!

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I don’t do a lot of this kind of lettering because it takes quite a bit of time (for me). Still, I love doing it.

I do have a zine all loved up – I mean, read – and ready to review. I will get that up tonight (my time, you sexy northern hemisphere-ers, you) or tomorrow.

Cheers!

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Rainy Days

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It’s a rainy day Down Under – perfect for sorting out mail stuff. I’ve been sewing up some copies of Dear Anonymous 3 (I ran out!) for some zine packs I’m sending out. Days 9 and 10 of International Zine Month 2015 call for sending out zine-related mail, so here I am.

On another note: have you ever wanted to be on a trading card? Billy Da Bunny has sent a shout out to the zine community because he’s making trading cards! Of us! How awesome is that? Check out this thread on WMZ to get some more details. I’ve already sent him all my stuff because the idea of being on a trading card is awesome.

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Happy Mail! Late But Worth the Wait (?)

Woo! Here’s a squiz at my lovely mail this week.

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I bought these two zines (and received extras!) from Melbourne zine maker Sarah McNeil. I had to grab some more of her zines after reading her Updated Report zine (review here!).

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This big ol’ zine haul from the Zines A Go Go mailing list! I looove little extras like flair (hehe) and stickers, so this was an extra special package. All the way from the States! Looks like I have a big ol’ stack of zines to review.

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10 Reasons I Love Zines – International Zine Month 2015

Yes, of course this was really posted on July 1st Australia time. I don’t backpost because it irritates me when something doesn’t go up on time…

Enough about that. Happy zine time!

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10 Reasons I Love Zines

  1. It’s not about the money. No one (well, no one I’ve ever heard of) make zines to make money, so there is love, passion and desire there that you don’t find in a lot of other areas.
  2. It’s a means to connect. Most of the time, I am a happy little hermit living most of my life in the place I call home. But that doesn’t mean I don’t crave connection, and zines are a beautiful way to do that. Whatever your ‘thing’, you’ll find a zine for it.
  3. Zine people are awesome. They get it. Whatever ‘it’ is, they understand. From dramas with your long-armed stapler to offerings at the shrine of the COPY MACHINE, they’re with you.
  4. If variety is the spice of live, then the land of zines has the best curry in town. (Not sure if that really works, but go with me.) This is kind of like #2 from a different angle. I’ve found zines about natural ways to keep your lady parts healthy, graphs on day-to-day life, thoughts on the sex industry, wordless art, nutella recipes and so much more!
  5. People want to share. This is another angle for #2. I’m a voyeur at heart (head out of the gutter, thanks), and zines let me get into other people’s heads without being weird or stalkerish. It’s in the natures of a good chunk of the population to tell their stories, and that’s like an Easter chocolate sale, birthday, long-awaited holiday, birthday, fireworks Christmas to someone like me. No, I don’t like all the stories I read, but I do like filling a ball pit with zines and – …I mean, there are always stories out there waiting to be read.
  6. No pressure. In another life path, I write books. There is always pressure there. Some of it’s good/fun – “When is the next book coming out?” – and some of it is completely ridiculous self-abuse – “How did someone like me manage to even finish a book?! My writing is awful!” – but it’s always there. People sometimes do ask about the next Dear Anonymous, but the conversation is something more like: “When is the next Dear Anonymous coming out?” “No idea.” “Cool. Looking forward to it.” No pressure, loves.
  7. Affordable. Because most zine makers are not in it to make money, zines are affordable! I can feel like an absolute zine hoarder with no guilt at all because it cost me what one or two books (f*cking GST) would cost me in a shop. That’s Australian-ish in that books are f*cking expensive here, but that’s another rant for another day. I will have ALL THE ZINES. <3
  8. Free to be me. I have Bipolar Disorder amongst a few other alphabet soup labels that I don’t pay much attention to. That sometimes mean I run around the house laughing while trying to tickle Wanderer. (Wanderer is not and has never been ticklish.) Other times, I go on lockdown, set my phasers to stun, and use my super doona for protection from the world. The zine world is probably the only world I inhabit where I feel totally comfortable not only admitting that but being that. I’ve never received judgment from a fellow zine maker. Never.
  9. Arts and crafts for the win. One of the reasons zines have so much variety is because you can do anything with them. Draw, colour, cut, paste, write, type, spray paint… Zines that aren’t specifically art zines are still art
  10. Voice of the people. Now, I don’t want to get political because that is not my area. But I do recognise that things are pretty shitty in many ways (and beautiful in others), and there isn’t a lot of trust in government or media. People need zines and other forms of underground/alternative expression to share ideas and feel like they are being heard. I hate to think  about what the world would be like today without it.

 

Woooooo. There’s my list. If you’ve shared yours, let me know. Let the zine love flow!

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International Zine Month (July!) 2015!

It’s that time again!

I say again, but this is really my first IZM insofar as actually participating and such. I have no idea what my participation is going to look like, as I’d really like to wrap up the first draft of my fourth novel by the end of the month. Ah, well. I’m a seat-of-my-pants kind of woman anyway. If you’re like me and want some ideas, Stolen Sharpie Revolution has something for you to do every day of the month! Whee!

International Zine Month 2015