Hello, zine friends! Welcome back to another International Zine Month day of goodness here in the zineverse. So many things to do and never enough time, so let’s launch right into the activities from the past few days.
Day 10:
Write a letter or a message to a zinester.
Mail, mail, glorious mail! I think it’s pretty obvious at this point how much I adore mail. What, with the whole Happy Mail Monday thing. Haha. But you do need to send mail to receive it, and I can tell you I had quite the stack of mail to respond to! (I’m a terrible penpal, unfortunately. I’m much better with care packages.)
The universe was kind with the sunshine filling the room and a stack of envelopes I thought I’d run out of. A beautiful day to spread the zine (and happy mail!) love.
A few people have mentioned having big mail send outs today, so here’s looking forward to plenty of happy mail posts in the near future!
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Day 11:
International Zine Day! Read a zine from a country different from your own.
Hahahaha I actually have more zines from overseas than I do from within Australia, so this is an easy one! And, of course, zine reading is quite the pleasure.
Here I have Alita: Battle Angel and Gunnm – A Tale About Humanity and Freedom by @MarGlow3. This zine is from France (with thanks to Shei who send it to me). I won’t get into the details here (because that’s what my review will be for), but I’ve seen the movie and they had me at Alita.
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Day 12:
ZineWiki Day! It’s a wiki just for zines! Add to or update listings to the new and improved zinewiki.com
ZineWiki! ZineWiki is an amazing resource filled with all sorts of information on zines, zinemakers, and much more. For a while, there were some issues with the coding and ability to access/edit things on the site. However, it looks like a lot of that (if not all of it) has been resolved! I even found my old Dear Anonymous page. I can’t seem to find my zinemaker page, so I’ll put that on the list of things to do!
If you’re new to ZineWiki, definitely check out the introduction page first. You can even have a go at making your first test edit there.
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Day 13:
Make up a zine superstition and share it (skip the 13th issue? Spin 3 times to prevent copier jams? Your best friend reads your zine first?)
In 2018, I wrote about a master copy ritual to ensure no difficulties in reproducing your zine. In 2019, I wrote about the number of black writing instruments needed to ensure a smooth zine-making experience. Last year, I wrote about a tale I’ve heard whispered about the 13th issue of a perzine series…
This year I tell you a tale from my own experience. I had no idea it was even a thing, but here we are. We must be careful, my zine friends, as the zine muses will not come our way if… our zines are unorganised!
We all know that point when our zine collection is unorganised. We can sense it in our souls. And it is at that moment that the timer starts… For you see, the longer our zine collection is unorganised, the longer the muse will stay away.
Sad but true.
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Day 14:
ValenZines Day! Give yourself some zine love! Read zines in a bubble bath? Buy some new scissors? Let your zine friends know you care about them.
Zine love! Yes, please, and thank you.
The state of the world, the state of the people in the world, trying to get by, trying to get our minds and hearts around this past year and a half… There’s a lot going on, like always, and it’s too easy to lose track of yourself, your self-care, and the people you care about.
It may not sound like the most loving sort of thing, but catching up with the daily prompts today has actually made me feel very good. I’m glad to have done it. As for self-care, I’ve been taking a bit of time each night to sit down and consider my future. I’ll probably be where I am for at least a few years, but it’s going to ba a lot more years than that if I don’t start making decisions and plans.
I say it pretty much every happy mail video, but I care about and thank each and every one of you. I wouldn’t be doing what I do or even able to do what I do without all of your support and encouragement. I really don’t know where I’d be at this point. Thank you.
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DOWNLOAD THE PDF TO PRINT YOUR OWN POSTER HERE!
Like with all years, I like to keep a running list of links to people/places participating in International Zine Month. So if that sounds like you, then please let me know! Comment here on the blog or send me an email at seagreenzines at gmail
Participants:
*Echo Publishing
*Hadass
