Birthday Giveaway!

Thursdays are usually review days here at SGZ, but this Thursday is a little bit special (if I do say so myself). It’s my birthday!

Instead of today’s review, I decided to put up a giveaway! I wasn’t sure what I wanted to give away, as I’ve had big trades and sold zines for a while now. Would my zines be a good prize. However, I remembered that there’s something I don’t talk about very much here…

My book! This is actually one of my books, but it’s the best one of the lot (I reckon). I’ve decided to give away one signed copy of this – and everyone worldwide is eligible! Geo-restrictions do not apply here, my friends. 🙂 So if you’d like to know what the book is all about, you can click here. If you’d like to enter to win a signed copy, follow on below…

a Rafflecopter giveaway
https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js

**If the Rafflecopter widget doesn’t work – and I suspect it won’t because WordPress doesn’t play nice with scripts – then you can CLICK HERE to enter**

Here’s What’s Happening

Woooooo. Wow do I feel like things are chaotic right now. They probably aren’t as much as I think, but it’s hard to see the forest for the trees at the moment. What do I love most when things are feeling chaotic? Lists!

Here’s what’s happening, what my plans are, so on and so forth as they stand right now:

*I won’t be reviewing zines this week. I hate to do it, but my birthday is the 10th, which is Thursday, when I usually put up a review, so on and so forth. With everything going on, I’d really love to relax and not have to think about anything on the day. However…

*There will be a bit of a birthday giveaway to make up for it. ^_^

*I still don’t quite have a move date. The short story is there are a number of things that have to happen in order (A means B can happen, which then means C can happen) before we can move, which is why things keep being moved around and are confusing. Add in a little dispute as well, and not stressing is becoming increasingly difficult. That being said…

*I’ll be setting up my new post box next week! My current post office box is still good for this week and probably next (depending on where you’re sending from – US has been good for within two weeks, within Aus – well you know what a crap shoot that is), but if you send to 786 after that, you may hit the mail redirect stream. That should definitely be fine as well, but it may add some time onto things. If you’re at all doubtful, you can always email me or wait until the new address is up here on the blog.

Oh! I nearly forgot! My goodness, where has my mind gone…

*Don’t Call Me Cupcake 8 will launch next week, ink willing. It’s all about brains and moving house. With some weird things thrown in. And…

*Paper Currency will launch next week! I wanted to wait until I had the new post box for this one, so I am very sorry to everyone who is waiting for it. I am so, so, so excited, though! So much to enjoy along with zine reviews, and a gorgeous cover by Queer Content as well. SO EXCITED.

http://giphy.com/gifs/rainbow-lol-gif-vomit-LwIw5RCH3hwGc

That’s me for now. Be sure to come back Thursday (or Wednesday, depending on your time zone) to check out the giveaway!

Zine Reviews Announcement

The world will forgive you for taking care of yourself. Or the world that matters.

A friend wrote that to me recently. They were helping me to relax about feeling bad. Why was I feeling bad? I was planning on completing a zine project and releasing it on the 17th. It didn’t matter that Wanderer had an MRI scheduled that day (he’s okay) and that I had to travel to Melbourne to see a neurologist the next day (I’m not awesome, but I can get better).

I hold myself to task for these things and get very disappointed when I don’t live up to my expectations.

The thing is that I am stressed. I am a little overwhelmed right now, and even though I certainly have the time to sit down with a zine and review it, I’m concerned that my exhaustion, my mood, and my stress may make that review less than that zine – or any zine – deserves from me. I respect that people are paying their hard-earned money to send me their zines, and I never want to give anything other than the best.

So I need to take this week off reviews. Just today and tomorrow. I’ll still be posting International Zine Month stuff. I’ll still have calls for submissions going up this weekend. But I can’t give zines the attention they deserve for a proper review this week. I will be right back to it next week with bells on.

I’m probably making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be. I mean, what’s two days? Two reviews that will happen later instead of today and tomorrow? It almost feels egotistical to assume people would care to the extent that I need to put up this announcement.

I hope that my stress about it just goes to show how much I care about this blog, about zines, and about every one of you who reads this blog. That I respect and love what I do. Feel fortunate that I can do this and bring people some happiness on occasion.

So I do hope you’ll forgive me. It’s hard to lose my ‘winning’ streak of not missing a review day this year. But I won’t sacrifice quality for quantity. (Or self-competition.) Not in this.

Big hugs and loves of love from Oz,

Nyx

Happy International Zine Month! – Announcements

Hello zine friends! I know it’s not quite July 1st everywhere in the world just yet, but I am so excited and don’t want to hold off jumping into International Zine Month!

If you’re new to the whole shebang, July is International Zine Month where zine enthusiasts around the world get their zine groove on in a multitude of ways. One of those is by doing the activity-a-day
prompts by Alex Wrekk:

I don’t imagine I will be surprising anyone when I say that I am aiming to do each prompt of the day. I won’t be postponing or changing the usual schedule, so be prepared for quite a few posts coming your way this month (especially if you’re signed up to receive post notifications by email).

The activities in the list are a smidge dates, so I’ll provide an alternative activity for the day here and there, but I’m not going to swoop in and make a whole new IZM list.

I am absolutely thrilled to announce that, along with IZM, we can now celebrate the brand new shiny home of We Make Zines: WeMakeZines.com!

Go there, sign up, and get chatting! I’m there as Nyx or @theauthor if you’d like to be friends.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back soon with the post for day one: Make a Top 10 list of reasons why you love zines!

Quick Updates

I have two new zines up for sale in my Etsy shop!

‘Don’t Call Me Cupcake: 2017’ is the seventh of a perzine series about my life. In this zine, I write about deciding not to write zines on a schedule, how my cat has used up most of his nine lives over the past few months, dealing with anxiety and mania at the same time, share the first chapter of my fourth novel, and more.

(PDF version coming soon)

The F Word is a zine about my favourite expletive and is an expanded version of an essay I wrote for one of my professional editing courses. (Top marks, if you are curious.) While it does poke fun at swearing, it also examines the history, versatility, and other factors that makes f*** a swear word for the ages.

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)

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)

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)

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)