Call for Calls for Submissions: Spread the Word About Your Zine!
Share your call for submissions, announce your newest zine, let people know you are crowdfunding… If you have an announcement to make that has to do with zines, do it here! Sea Green Zines wants to be your megaphone. Even better? It’s an automatic shout out on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr when you advertise here.
Big fuzzy love hearts to those who have a .jpg call for subs, but all are welcome. Get in touch by emailing theauthor[at]inkyblots.com or comment below.
Call for Submissions: Sound-Bites Zine, Issue 7.0
It’ll make you lucky! This time around, listen to the storm.
Is it booming out loud or a quiet patter of rain?
Does it dispel the humidity or bring more?
Do you feel your head clearing or your heart beating?
Whatever and wherever the storm is to you, now is the time to pay attention to sound. Perhaps there are raucous storms where you previously believed there existed a pearly pool of calm. I’ll be writing a follow-up piece with more ideas for you on how to begin listening and increase your listening fun.
Send your answers (photos, doodles, sound recordings, poems, lyrics, short prose, found objects) to simplynotjaded@gmail.com. They can be your original work or the work of another artist/author/musician who addresses the question.
All contributors get a free physical copy in the mail along with endless love and ice cream.
Happy listening!
Mini Zine Review: Read
Read
Chris Graves
???
Today’s review is a short and sweet one for you.
Read is, as Chris puts it, “A mini-zine of mini-reviews OR A taste of some of the things I’ve read in the last month”.
I like that it’s not just text on paper (nothing against zines like that, though). Some reviews have mini-pictures of the covers, and there are little bits of colour here and there as well. I find it funny that the same book – The Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult – has been recommended in the two book review zines I’ve read. I’ll have to check it out.
This zine does contain on of those things that makes me go ‘hrmph’ – lack of contact/social media. You might make a zine just for you or only for your friends, but you never know if your zine will end up all the way in Australia with someone like me who’d like to see your website. 🙂
Zine Review: Ethical Sloth 4 – Happy Horror
Ethical Sloth 4 – Happy Horror
Annika Pepita, Sandra Haselsteiner, Raoul Berlin, Nina Echozina, Lilli Loge, Tony Trouble, Patch Sinclair, Yori Gagarim, Tanja Is, Anna Bas Backer, C.C., Dana Moustache
http://ethicalsloth.net/
https://www.facebook.com/ethicalsloth/
The red splatter on the cover is actual paint, not printing. I love that! Anything that’s a little extra ‘something’ added after the printing makes a zine that much more fun for me.
With the blood spatter across the cover and ‘Happy Horror’ as a subtitle, I assumed this was a horror zine. As it turns out, it is, but it’s much more than that…
Ethical Sloth 4 is a collection of comics that takes a horror lens on all too real experiences of sexism, fear, and a lot more. I don’t think I’ve read a zine that was an assortment of comics before, and this was a great introduction to it. I enjoyed the wide variety of artistic styles, from more full page types of comics…
…to more traditional panel type of comic…
As you may have noticed, the second comic is in German (I believe), so I wasn’t able to understand some of it. But therein lies the beauty of images; I was able to get the gist of some parts.
“Piece of Meat” was my favourite of all of them, as it got me thinking and spun my expectations in just a few pages without very many words involved. I have to admire the ability to do that.
If you like comics, supporting the queer community, and zines addressing subjects like sexism, misogyny, etc, then take a look at Ethical Sloth.
Don’t Call Me Cupcake 5 and… Something New?
Today was an absolute miseryguts kind of day with grey skies and a lot of rain. What’s one to do on such a day? Work on zine projects, of course.
Or do what you can to clean up mistakes. This is what happens when I get ahead of myself and print off the table of contents labels and then decide to rejig the actual interior of the zines.
Waste not, want not. Thank goodness for short print runs so it doesn’t take long to take care of these sorts of things.
But for some folding and sewing, Don’t Call Me Cupcake 5 is done!
Not one to stop while I still have ideas, I also took advantage of the dreary day by starting another zine project that I’ve had in mind for a long time. More details to come soon, but for now, just a peek…
On Reviewing Zines
My friend Fishspit emailed me recently and asked that I review some different topics in zines. Reading that, I realised that, yes, I do tend to stick mostly in a certain arena. Part of that is because poetry and I have a relationship that consists of awkwardly staring at each other in complete silence. Another part of it is that I know very little about any sort of music scene. The rest is a bit of a jumbled mess.
Anyway, the whole thing got me thinking about reviews in general and how I haven’t really visited the topic since that one (and only) time I made a podcast on the subject. While I’m not quite in the space to make another podcast, I thought I’d write a bit about what’s going on in my head in regards to reviews.
My Reviewing Rules
*Only positive reviews… and neutral ones. True, sometimes a zine doesn’t exactly hit all the right spots for me, but I’m not here to simply trash anyone’s work. If I really don’t like it, I won’t review it.
*I won’t post street addresses. The more I think about it, the more I’m leaning towards posting post boxes in with reviews. But I’m still firmly a ‘no’ on the street addresses. I am biased by having been stalked in the past.
*I’m so-so about interior pictures. For me, it’s about length of zine. If I think a zine is short enough where a lot of the content will be ‘given away’ by revealing a picture, I won’t do it. I’m also a bit hesitant in general because that’s someone else’s art and/or words, but I have started to make the occasional exception.
*Requests for certain zine topics and such are totally okay! It’s all good so long as everyone understands that I can’t just drop everything and grab a zine on that topic. I’m limited by zine cost, postage cost, so on and so forth. But I will keep track of all requests.
Ideal Review Happy Mail
I’ve only been sent a few zines to review at this point. Most of what I put up still comes from my own stock with a small percentage of that being trades and such. Even so, I’ve come to appreciate certain things
*Telling me it’s for review/it’s okay to review. Even if we’re doing a trade, saying, “Hey, I’d love it if you reviewed this” is perfectly good. It lets me know that I should probably move it a smidge further up in the queue instead of sticking it behind my own stock.
*The date. This just makes my life easier and makes it a little less likely that the sender will have to wait months for a review.
*Contact details to share. I will mention it if these details aren’t in the zine itself, but it’s really nice to have them in one place rather than needing to go hunting them down. (Hunting for further information is fun. Hunting for basic details… not so much.)
*Your identifying pronoun. This is a bit of a new one to me, but I do want this to be a positive space. I read an article a while back about a zinemaker whose pronoun is ‘they’ was listed as ‘she’, and they were very upset about it. You know me – I don’t want to upset anyone. So if your name points a person to an assumption that is wrong, please mention your preference.
*When in doubt, type. I love a handwritten letter, but if it’s difficult to read the handwriting, mistakes are easily made. When it comes to the things listed above, I’d rather not make mistakes.
I’m sure there’ll be other things that I think of here and there in the future, but that well and truly covers it for now. I’m happy to be where I am, doing what I’m doing in a way that lets other people know about zines. Any requests that aren’t to do with reviewing are also welcome. 🙂
Call for Submissions: Zine of the Hill
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: ZINE OF THE HILL (better title tbd)
Did anyone else cry when Netflix took down King of the Hill?
Looking for fan art/fiction, conspiracy theories, love poems, short essays, memes, and good memories about one of the greatest shows of all time, King of the Hill. The show went off the air six years ago after thirteen seasons, and is gone (from Netflix) but not forgotten.
Hit me up @ queeranxietybabiezdistro@gmail if you have any questions! Please share with your networks or anyone you think may be interested ^_^
Call For Submissions: Gaali Gang Zine
Calling all badnaami babes, #curryscentedcreatives, and rule-breaking desis of all tangled subcontinent identities – the very first edition of gaali gang zine is seeking submissions!
We accept any sort of art or writing, including prose, essays, poetry, reviews, drawings/doodles, short stories, photography, critiques, interviews, or anything else you can think of! Submissions are open to anyone who identifies as Desi or South Asian, in any sort of way possible. It doesn’t matter where you were born or what languages you do (or don’t) speak. This zine is an inclusive space for individuals regardless of age, gender identity, sexuality, religion, color, or background.
Please submit pieces for consideration to gaaligang@gmail.com by August 31 at midnight. Feel free to email us if you have any questions or share and spread the word!
gaali gang is a radical zine focused on sharing the experiences of diasporic South Asian identities, no matter how non-traditional or rebellious they may be. Our first issue will be available in fall 2016.
Follow us @ gaaligang.tumblr.com
Call for Submissions: All in Your Head
All in Your Head is a traditional cut-and-paste style zine with a focus on LGBTQIA neurodivergent and disabled activists, zinesters, artists, and authors. Our zine operates on the following *principles: 1.) social inequality and injustice exists [racism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, cissexism to name a few]; 2.) disability, neurodiversity can be understood as a viable form of human difference that intersects with/is shaped by systems of dominance; 3.) claims that there is a “normal” bodymind can have damaging and harmful effects (physically/emotionally/spiritually) and are partly shaped by current social/cultural values and white western colonial histories; 4.) neuroatypical people and people with disabilities must navigate cultural taboos, move among complex institutions and systems of care and negotiate conflicting ideas of “wellness/illness,“ “silence/disclosure,” “visibility/invisibility;” “dis/ability” and more 5.) most importantly, our stories matter. (*this list is by no means exhaustive)
For the Fall 2016 edition of All in Your Head, we invite you to share first person narratives, essays, rants, poems, doodles, drawings, photography, collages (and more!) that address the concept of “cure.” We are seeking pieces that explore the theme “cures” as it relates to disabled bodyminds and ways that queer neurodivergent, disabled folks encounter and resist cultural stigma and self-authorize our existence.
We are seeking topics that address the following themes (and others):
§ “Cure culture” (Eli Clare) as a homogenizing/coercive force
§ Critiques of health, well-being, and wholeness as it is informed by white supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, racism, colorism, ableism, classism, homo/bi/transphobia and other forms of oppression;
§ “Curing” queerness, disability, and neurodiversity manifesting as state and institutional violence;
§ Interconnections among racism, white supremacy, ableism, and state/institutional violence particularly in light of police violence and state surveillance;
§ Queering cures and cure culture;
§ Trans and queer sick/neurodivergent/disabled narratives and grappling with the concept of “cure;”
§ Radically performing illness/sickness and other forms of resistance to “cure culture;”
§ Artist/Activist projects related to queerness, disability, and neurodivergence for our activist spotlight section.
§ Have an idea not listed here? Submit anyway!
Send your submissions to allinyourheadzine@gmail.com before September 1st, 2016. Please send your submissions via email. For written submissions, please use Microsoft word and submit your writing in .doc or .docx format. Please try to limit submissions to 1500 words. (We are flexible. Let us know if you need a little extra space.) For artwork, please attach high resolution .jpg images to your email. Please include a title for your artwork and any information you would like readers to know about your piece (medium, location, tools used etc). Contributors have the option of sharing a short bio or publishing their work anonymously.
IMPORTANT: Contributors should be willing to have their work displayed in another, accessible form of media alongside the traditional paper zine. Contributors should anticipate that their work may be read and translated/captioned in a video via youtube or vimeo or another internet venue. More details on this element to come. Email us with any questions. Coordinators of All in Your Head reserve the right to reject any pieces that violate our basic feminist/queer values. We explicitly seek to interrupt racism, sizeism, sexism, ableism, classism, trans/bi/homophobia, and all other forms of oppression in our work and submissions that violate these principles will be automatically rejected. All submissions should provide content/trigger warnings where appropriate. Coordinators reserve the right to add trigger/content warnings if necessary.