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#ZineWriMo Day 10: Zinemaking Supplies

Hello, zine friends, and a happy ZineWriMo day 10! Today is a day for headless chook mode around the zine cave with heaps to do and never enough time to do them. Still, I have been poking away at my various zine projects and was lucky in that today’s prompt didn’t take very much time at all.

Organise your zinemaking goodies

When it comes to me and the zine cave, I’m reminded of my beautiful dog Zenna and her bed. Most of the time, it’s absolutely fine. But every now and then, she decides it’s still not quite right and fusses with this or that until she finally settles down.

Well over a year since I’ve moved, I’m still fussing, poking, and prodding at various things, trying to create an ‘ideal’ workspace (whatever that will end up being). But it worked for me today in that I’ve already packed up all my zinemaking goodies.

I’ve somehow managed to accumulate a huge amount of washi tape that I put into a clear bowl-thing that I actually won at the pub ages ago. My zine sewing supplies are also nicely packed all together (though there isn’t really much to pack) in a green box so neither needles nor thread wander away from me.

What’s not pictured (because I forgot and now don’t have the light for it) is the one cube on my cube shelf reserved for the scrapbooking paper I use for backgrounds in some of my zines. I have a few 12×12 pads and quite a few 6×6 ones of all sorts of different patterns because I also make cards.

And now that you know more about me than you wanted to… Haha! Let me know how you keep your zine making goodies all nice and tidy. Or do you keep them in different ways? Does tidiness take away from the creativity? Let me know in the comments.

Check out the full list of daily prompts here.

Participants:

*Echo Publishing
*Riot Grrl
*Ulterior Zines
*Olga Writes Things
*Zines and Things
*Maybe Magick Zines

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Call for Submissions: The Rock N’ Roll Horror Zine

The Rock N’ Roll Horror Zine
Submissions Now Open

Looking for rock, metal and punk themed horror, sci-fi, pulp and bizarro fiction submissions up to 2,500 words. Also interested in visual art submissions that are on theme, especially cover art.

Accepted submissions receive $5 and a contributor copy.

Email submissions to doomgoat666@gmail.com

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Call for Submissions: Arospec Poetry Network

The Arospec Poetry Network is seeking submissions from arospec (= who belong on the aromantic spectrum) visual artists to illustrate the fifth issue of its collective art/poetry zine “Don’t Talk To Me Of Love”.

This issue will center around the theme of different types of love.

Artists have the choice between directly submitting original content related to this theme, or getting in touch with our members to work in closer relation and illustrate a particular piece of poetry.

We accept traditional art, digital art, photography, comics (1 to 2 pages), … You can always get in touch if you’re not sure whether your artwork would fit our zine. The zine is published digitally with an A4 format.

Please do not submit more than three pieces at a time, and include titles for your pieces.

All rights will remain with the artists. Since the zine is a free publication, we cannot offer financial compensation.

Due date for submissions is November 15th.
The expected release date is in December.

You can contact us and/or send in your submissions per e-mail: meenilevi@gmail.com or through tumblr: @arospecpoetrynet.

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#ZineWriMo Day 9: NaNoZine!

Hello and happy Friday, zine friends! I’m glad it’s Friday. While it doesn’t have the same connotations for me as a lot of other people, I still enjoy it. Even moreso because it has been a beautiful and sunny day here at Murray Bridge.

Onto today’s prompt!

Make a zine: NaNoZine! Make a zine full of words

Because November is also National Novel Writing Month, I originally decided to turn chapter one of my novel into a mini-zine. However, the more I got to thinking about words in general, the more I started thinking about the quotes I’ve collected.

Yep. I collect quotes.

Whether I’m passing by a stranger and they say something that stands out to me or a friend says something I just *have* to write down, I enjoy ‘collecting’ quotes and have done so for years. Yes, years.

With that in mind, I decided to make this mini:

This mini features some of the quotes from my collection because why not? Words are funny things, and I enjoyed making this – even the little doodle backgrounds. I’ll be uploading a short video on my Instagram account as soon as I post this in case you’d like to take a peek a the inside.

How’d you go with the ‘zine full of words’ prompt?

Check out the full list of daily prompts here.

Participants:

*Echo Publishing
*Riot Grrl
*Ulterior Zines
*Olga Writes Things
*Zines and Things
*Maybe Magick Zines

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Zine Review: Roam 01

Roam 01
Leah Delacrux
https://www.instagram.com/leahdelacrux/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAPdQbECntg

Roam 01 is an A5 full-colour photography zine featuring Instax photos taken in Autumn 2018.

Roam is a zine of few words, opening with ‘Autumn 2018’ before taking you on a journey through photos. Each picture has a page all its own, the image centred on it. We explore through the eyes of the photographer as they wander around an unnamed (in the zine) city.

This zine takes on the look of a gallery viewing with a lot of white space around each picture, making the pictures really pop. Moreso, the lack of words or other visual elements made it feel like a very ‘quiet’ zine for me. I could sit and take in each photo, my mind quieting (no small feat, that’s for sure) as I looked at the images.

I liked the outdoor photos the best with autumn leaves, trees, and blue skies always being a winner for me. Not to mention the beach photos. I was impressed with the quality, having heard other people say that the Instax camera is a ‘party piece’ that ‘isn’t meant for good photos’.

The indoor pictures weren’t as interesting for me, but that’s entirely personal preference. After all, when we roam, we don’t always stay outdoors, right? We roam in and out of places as well. So while I have my preferences, I think the mix of indoor and outdoor did fit in with the title.

If you like photography and like to see what photographers can achieve with cameras other than DSLR, then check out this zine.

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Zine Review: Chronicled Chaos Issue 1

Chronicled Chaos Issue 1
Molly
https://www.instagram.com/zappixart/
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/ZappixArt

Chronicled Chaos is an A6 size black and white (save for one art page) perzine about Molly and their system (what’s a system? Read the zine hehe), Dissociative Identity Disorder, chronic illness, art, and more.

I’ve mentioned plenty of times here how much I love and appreciate perzines because they’re either helping me feel less alone, or they are giving me new perspectives that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. Sometimes both. So how could I not love a perzine that not only teaches me so much but also opens up with a glossary of terms after the introduction?

Chronicled Chaos opens up with an introduction from Molly, who they are, and what you can expect in this (and future) perzines in the series. (Love how they put it all down on the page right from the get go.) From there, Molly then gives a comprehensive list of terms and definitions around DiD (Dissociative Identity Disorder).

As I mentioned, I learned a lot in a relatively small amount of time about DiD and their experience of it. There’s not only an overview of the condition but also brief introductions (and history) for some of Molly’s alters or parts (new vocabulary!). They even include drawings of each of them – something I found fascinating as well as enjoyable to look at.

There’s a lot more to enjoy in this perzine as well, the variety reminding me of MissMuffCake’s Stay at Home Girlfriend series. Molly includes art, poems, a comic, and other things happening in their life. They also include content warning for any possible triggers.

One thing they included is called ‘#SeeMyInvisible’ which involves taking a selfie and drawing over the selfie to display where their chronic illness(es) are. It’s about seeing invisible illnesses and, moreover, reminding people that it’s not all about what their eyes can see. They used a gold marker to colour over their selfie, and I thought about how I hoped the hashtag would really take off and more people would do it.

The variety also plays into the look of the zine as well, with plenty of clear text mixed in with art, a few pages with unobtrusive backgrounds for the text, and so on. There’s definitely plenty to look at.

One aesthetic touch I especially enjoyed is how the gold speckles on the cover, the gold on the aforementioned ‘See My Invisible’ and some stickers on the inside are all put on after the printing. Meaning that each zine copy will have that little bit of unique touch to set it apart from the rest.

I really enjoyed this perzine from the casual reader standpoint to the interested learner standpoint. There’s a lot to take in and think about without it feeling incredibly dense. Check it out.

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#ZineWriMo Day 8: Stream of Consciousness Writing

Is it the weekend yet? Haha. Hello, zine friends, and welcome to another day of ZineWriMo where we get our zine on in a fashion inspired by National Novel Writing month. (But with somewhat less work involved because the activities list was made by a spoonie.)

Warm Up: Try stream of consciousness writing

I think I first started stream of consciousness writing when I was in high school and the composition teacher seemed really big into journalling, writing every day, so on and so forth. While I certainly didn’t keep up the ‘every day’ part of it, I did (and do) find it a useful tool right alongside things like brainstorming.

Sometimes the things that come aren’t are far from pretty, but I’ve always viewed that as a sort of purging. Get the muck out of my brain and my heart and onto the paper where it can’t keep creating clouds in my view. A shower of literary sorts. Haha.

My ideas notebook catches all things zine-related, so my writing went right on in there along with everything else. However, given that it’s of a personal nature at points, I’m afraid you get another picture of the cover of my ideas book.

Do you do stream of consciousness writing? Is today your first time? Let me know all your thoughts about it – even if you really don’t like it! – in the comments and/or by linking to your post about it.

Check out the full list of daily prompts here.

Participants:

*Echo Publishing
*Riot Grrl
*Ulterior Zines
*Olga Writes Things
*Zines and Things
*Maybe Magick Zines