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#ZineWriMo Days 26 & 27

Hello, zine friends, and happy start to the final week of November! And not even a full week at that. Eeesh. How the time is flying.

Today I’m combining days 26 and 27, so let’s jump right in.

Day 26: Try Something New: Make a Collage

Okay, so it’s less collage and more just ripped up pieces of paper, but it turned into a background I rather liked for one of my zine covers. (Bonus cookies if you know which one.)

I used to feel that collages just weren’t my thing, but after giving a few a go, I’m rather liking it. I do need to pick up some magazines, though. I need more inspiration.

On to today!

Set Your Zine Free

A beautiful facet of the zine community is the free zine. The zine given away or traded for the love of zine-ing. Many distros with physical shops have free sections or baskets for you to get into to your hearts’ delight.

If you’re in the Brisbane and like the look of some of the zines I’ve made so far this ZineWriMo, drop in at Copy & Destroy Zine Library. I sent a little somethin’ somethin’ for their free section earlier this month.

I wasn’t able to drop off any copies of my zines out and about today, but I was planning on dropping them at my library. Your local library can be a great place to do this without provoking your anxiety.

That’s me for today. Happy mail and ZineWriMo day 28 coming tomorrow. ^_^

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#ZineWriMo Day 25: Stockpile Zine Parts

Hello, zine friends. I hope your weekend is going well or is off to a good start depending on your time zone.

Today’s zine task is one sorely needed one on my part. I’m definitely one for stockpiling zine parts.

I like stockpiling parts. Taking an afternoon to cut out cupcakes, cut embroidery thread to the right length, fold zines. I put on some music or a show I like, and the whole thing becomes less of a task and more of a nice, calm way to spend a few hours.

It’s entirely possible that this sort of thing isn’t useful to you. But if it is, let me know in the comments what zine parts you stockpile.

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Swerve Zine Library Call for Zine Submissions

SWERVE ZINE LIBRARY IS A TRAVELING COLLECTION OF ZINES. Prose, poetry, short stories, comics, art, collage — It’s all here. Swerve travels around the city and hunkers down for a week to a month at a time at select venues. Want to track SZL? Check for updates here or follow the tag #swervezinelibrary.

ZINES ARE NOT TO LEAVE THE PREMISES. If you love a zine we highly suggest finding the artist on social media and showing your support by purchasing their publication. While we ask that you take nothing home with you, you are welcome to add your own zine to the collection.

SWERVE IS ALWAYS TAKING ZINE SUBMISSIONS. If you’d like to be featured in the library, post your creations to Kate Berwanger / PO Box 20233 / Seattle, WA 98102. Or track down SZL and deposit your zine directly.

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Zine Review: Small Potatoes Issue 1

Small Potatoes Issue 1
Keira
IG: @k.huolohan
TW: @khuolohan

Small Potatoes 1 is a quarter-sized black and white slice-of-life perzine, and I have never found a zine cover and title combo so absolutely endearing. Love it!

It’s a week for coming back to zine-ing as Keira opens by writing this is the first zine they have written in over a year. Welcome back to zinemaking!

I really liked the variety I found in Small Potatoes. Don’t get me wrong – I like all life stuff kinds of zines. But Keira worked in life stuff, dreams, a short fiction story, poetry, and even book recommendations.

In the beginning they write that they want this zine to be an attempt to opening up, and I think they accomplished that. With so many different things, I think Keira has created a great start in showing their world bubble.

I’ve never been so inclined to ask a zinemaker if they wanted to be friends based on zine alone.

Getting back to the dream stuff, you may be thinking that they’re a hit or miss topic to write about. I check Keira’s dreams off as a hit. I don’t know if it was the dream, the writing, or the combination of both, but there was one point where Keira writes, “I felt so peaceful.” I nodded along because I felt peaceful, too!

On the aesthetics side, Keira uses typewritten words with a combination of drawing and pictures that go very well with the text.

If perzines are your thing or you’re new to zinemaking, then pick up a copy of this zine.

PS. I love the little ‘contact details’ pun on the back. I won’t spoil it, though.

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#ZineWriMo Day 24: Zine With Friends!

Hello, zine friends, and happy Friday!

I hope you all are doing well. I’m a little fuzzy on time zones, but I think my American friends may be all sleepy and full of stuffing after their Thanksgiving feasts. (Or am I calling that a little early? Either way, I hope those celebrating have a wonderful day! I do miss pumpkin pie a lot this time of year. 😉

To be honest with you, I’m feeling a little blue today. You see, today’s prompt is:

Zine With Friends!

no offline friends here in Murray Bridge just yet, so I’ve been sharing pics of what I’m doing on my Instagram stories, but it doesn’t feel the same. I also just so happen to be finishing up a zine about the two friendship breakups that happened over the move and, yeah… Blue.

So please tell me you’ve been having a great Friday, zines or not (though aren’t Fridays always better with zines?). I’m going to go enjoy a doughnut and finish the zine I’ve been reading so I can post the review here soon.

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Zine Review: Insomniughhh 1

Insomniughhh 1
Ashley
https://sites.google.com/view/insomniugh

This zine may be about living with a circadian rhythm sleep disorder, but I loved reading in the intro that this zine is Ashley’s step back into zinemaking after about twelve years. <3

Insomniughhh 1 is a short but informative introduction into what a circadian rhythm sleep disorder is and what it’s like to live with one.

Ashley’s disorder comes in the form of feeling the need to go to sleep at 2.30 to 3.30 in the morning. From what the word ‘circadian’ actually means to a breakdown of sleep studies, Ashley provides a lot of information in what feels like more than fourteen pages.

I love how informative this zine is. I didn’t know much about sleep disorders beyond the basics, and I loved learning more. I especially liked the larks and owls part. Most people have heard of night owls, but I’ve never heard of nor thought about its morning counterpart. (Spoiler: Larks)

I had to chuckle in sympathy when I saw CBT on the ‘What They Tell You Works’ list. (More power to you if it works for you, but it’s handed out like a wonder drug.) I liked how Ashley followed that with the ‘What Works For Me’ list. For me, it served as a reminder that what ‘they’ say is not the be all and end all for options.

The sleep study part was an eye opener, however. As someone who got a ‘something is wrong, but we’re not sure what’ from her own sleep study, I found some hope in finding out that sleep studies aren’t useful in circadian rhythm disorders.

Insomniughhh is a handwritten zine, but I had no trouble reading. It has a nice balance of text and pictures. The text occasionally skips outside the margins, but not too badly.

If you want to learn about circadian sleep disorders, then this is definitely a great zine to start with.

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#ZineWriMo Day 23: Make a Wordless Zine

Hello, hello! It’s a week and a day until the end of November, and today’s ZineWriMo task is:

Make a Wordless Zine

Now it’s time for a confession.

I got caught up in making Don’t Call Me Cupcake 9.5 and completely lost track of time. The annoying things is that I’m so close but not finished yet. So I’m afraid I don’t have a wordless zine. (Trust me, you don’t want to see my attempts at art anyway.)

Instead, I offer you Plague. I reviewed this ages ago, but it’s the zine/comic that came to mind when I thought of ‘wordless’. It’s grim, dark, and oh, so good.

Despite not having the wordless minizine, I will have a zine review coming very soon.

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#ZineWriMo Day 22: Work In Progress Wednesday

Hello, zine friends! A bit of a late post for me today, but that’s because today’s prompt is to work on zines in progress, and I have been working hard all day! It feels good to make progress on these zines after feeling creatively blocked for quite a while.

Checking back in with my goals:

*Complete ZineWriMo – don’t miss any days
*Complete all ZineWriMo mini-zines
*Complete mini-zines: Little Reminders 2, Little Reminders 3
*Complete all writing for Don’t Call Me Cupcake 9

Bonus round:

*Complete Dear Anonymous 7
*Complete Don’t Call Me Cupcake 9 (just the proof copy to take care of)
*Complete Don’t Call Me Cupcake 9.5 (in progress – nearly there)

I also finished up Missives From Murray Bridge 3! I wanted to finish Don’t Call Me Cupcake 9.5 today, but I didn’t quite get through all the bits and pieces.

How’d you go with things today? Did you get into any zine goodness? Let me know in the comments.