Happy mail is postponed because it’s an absolutely dreary day, and my house has horrible lighting.
Happy International Zine Month – Day 9 & 10: Zine Giveaway Time!
Yesterday I postponed the task for day nine so I could think about who to write to. A new day today meant a new task…
Day 9: Write a letter to a zine maker you don’t know.
Day 10: Send a care package to a zine friend.
Well. Those two together gave me an idea…
Far be it for me to squiggle the rules around, but I thought I could combine these two and tweak it into a giveaway!
That’s right; you could win some Sea Green Zines!
All you have to do is leave a comment on this post letting me know which zine(s) you’d rather have: Dear Anonymous or Don’t Call Me Cupcake. (Neither is an option! If that’s the case, I’ll send you zines from my collection.)
Easy peasy.
Open worldwide.
I’ll announce the winner next Sunday (Melbourne time).
Ruby Zine Call for Submissions: The Female Experience
the first edition of ruby zine is looking for submissions with the theme “the female experience,” which can be interpreted however you wish. feel free to submit poetry, reviews, prose, essays, short stories, drawings/doodles, photography, diary entries, etc. basically anything you want that you think will fit. the zine will be published on issuu most likely, and i may be looking into other ways of publishing the zine (for free). when the zine is complete, i will send everyone involved a link to the finished publication. PS if anyone is interested in making cover art or submitting art for the cover that would be great!
i am unable to pay for submissions as i’m a broke student ((but getting published is great for a resume)) :~)
the deadline for submissions is august 10th 2016. i will definitely get back to you before this date if you submit; this is just the absolute last day for submissions! you can submit at rubyzine.tumblr.com/submit & feel free to ask any questions you may have.
please include with your submission what name you’d like to go by, the title of your work (if there is one) and how you can be contacted/found on social media (optional)
**this is inclusive to trans women/transfeminine/femme presenting and nonbinary people as well…basically anyone who has something to share is more than welcome; the more perspectives the merrier!
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.
Happy International Zine Month Days 7, 8, 9
Happy zine month!
I feel so unprepared for July. Like I’m running around trying to put on my socks and pants while trying to do ALL THE THINGS all at once. Is anyone else feeling like that?
I went back and forth a bit but decided that I wasn’t going to post IZM stuff on review days because I like the reviews to have the whole day to be the one post of that day. But thinking about that now and actually typing it out… I think I might be thinking about this all too much.
We’ll see how next week goes.
Anyway, because I am still trying to metaphorically pull on those metaphorical socks, I am going to switch things up here just a smiggle. But I will list what is actually listed for each day.
Day 7: Make some envelopes or postcards for postal week.
I mentioned in this post why I don’t do a lot of mail/envelope art, and that still holds true, unfortunately. So I saw this task and wondered if I really wanted to sit and make envelopes that I
Of course, it was only later that my mind registered the ‘or postcards’ part of the day’s task. Oopsie. Still, I want to go with my original plan and give a hat tip to the current king of mail art: Fishspit. Here’s some of his work:
Day 8: Make a flier for your zine to send with trades.
I have one of those!
However, it’s only just occurred to me as I am typing this post that I might want to make a ‘Don’t Call Me Cupcake’ flier. I’ve only ever created fliers for zines that have calls for submissions. I’d never considered to announce or otherwise advertise (in flier form, anyway) DCMC. Hm. I want to get a new cupcake, if I decide to do it, but I’ll post here with any new fliers.
Day 9: Write a letter to a zine maker you don’t know.
One I don’t know? Huh. Well that’s an interesting pickle. Who do I write to…
I could get silly and pedantic, asking the definition of ‘know’, but I’m going to go with ‘someone you haven’t communicated with before’. I’ve only ever written to two zinesters before (keeping along that definition of ‘know’, that is): Sage of Fat-tastic and Ken of Ken Chronicles. I definitely need to write more responses in general.
It’s about 8.20pm right now, and I’m not going to write a letter tonight (I have a date with a novel I’ve been avoiding writing), so I’m going to defer this so I can have a think about who I want to write to.
Until tomorrow…
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.
Ideally I’d like to have this done for San Francisco Zine Fest 2016, so deadline is ~August 20 (that’s two whole months). Hit me up @ queeranxietybabiezdistro@gmail if you have any questions! Please share with your networks or anyone you think may be interested ^_^
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.
Zine Review: There is No Relief or Release From Sorrow
There is No Relief or Release From Sorrow
Philip Dearest & Others
PhilipDearest.tumblr.com
If the name sounds familiar, Philip Dearest
This Has All Been Too Much For Me Today, I Think I’ll Go Back to Bed, another zine of mental illness-inspired art.
By its own description,
There is No Relief or Release From Sorrow is an art therapy zine about depression/grief/loneliness.
Philip has curated a number of pieces created by people expressing themselves and their experiences through words and art.
The art is all beautiful, and sad, and heartbreaking… For me, it was a strange combination of wanting to make each and every artist feel better as well as the sad comfort of knowing that I am not alone. The choice to make the words and art white on black instead of the other way around adds to the entire feel of the zine.
The title of this zine suggests something so hopeless, but I think the fact that this is a collaboration is, in and of itself, a hopeful thing.
I only noticed after a few looks through that this is actually volume four, so I’m looking forward to finding volumes one through three.
Zine Review: f(ART)
f(ART)
?
?
Honestly, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do a review today. The SAD is strong, the to-do list is long, etc. Not the best space to bring to a zine review.
Then Wanderer went to the post office and brought home a box stuffed full of amazing zine goodness from the awesome LogPoes. (Post about that to come later.) I gleefully looked through the zines inside. I saw this zine, and I knew I had to review it. Today.
Why? Because this zine is a hilarious example of how zines can be anything that you want them to be. And everything you would have never thought of otherwise…
I think you can imagine what f(ART) is about from the title. Rather than deep introspection on the meaning of passing gas, this mini-zine is a cut-and-paste project pairing the intense seriousness of fashion with the level of humour I’m only a little ashamed to say I laughed out loud at.
Then I was still so amused that I took it out and showed Wanderer.
So it might not be hilarious to you if you’re, say, more mature than I am (not a hard target to beat)… Still, someone put in all the time and the effort of cutting out these pictures, pasting them, and then adding little fart clouds and words like ‘toot!’. Even if farts aren’t funny, isn’t that person’s efforts worth a smile?
Here’s a peek at the back cover to get an idea of what’s inside.
This is definitely going in the ‘for keeps’ collection.
International Zine Month – Day 6
Another day, another way to get your zine on in International Zine Month!
Add your zine to or update your ZineWiki.org
If you’re not familiar with Zine Wiki, it’s pretty straightforward – a wiki for zines! It’s a massive directory of zines, zine makers, some events and articles.
I’d already put up pages for my zines a while back, but I updated them insofar as getting up to the latest issues of things.
You can find Dear Anonymous here and Don’t Call Me Cupcake here.
I still need to go back with exact dates, and the descriptions are a bit lackluster, but I’m counting today’s task as sorted. Phew!