Hello! It’s October. Almost November, even. We are in COZY SEASON (at least in the part of the world I live in), and I think it’s time to make soup and maybe read a zine?
In Sheer Spite news, I’ve rejigged the website a bit. The site is all built by me, someone with no particular knowledge of such things, so it’s always going to be a work in progress. The homepage is a little bit prettier now, I think.
I also split up the About page into sections on buying from Sheer Spite, having your work published or distributed through Sheer Spite, events and stores where you can find Sheer Spite stuff (and wholesale ordering info), and most excitingly, a new page of resources for making and sharing zines, plus links to cool zines that are free to print.
New stuff
You can add a ??FREE??? very beautiful lino-printed Sheer Spite bookmark to your order, courtesy of friend of the press Anna Jay? We also carry her beautiful Polaroid emulsion transfer postcards of Montreal neighbourhoods. Also new in distro:
- Three from Nebula:
- Nebula Thoughts #1: On queer friendship, amatonormativity, gender, identity, labels, and the concept of romance.
- Nebula Thoughts #2: On the concepts of masking and coming out in areas of gender, queerness, mental health, neurodivergence, and disability.
- Red Nebula: A zine of conversations between two friends about breaking down the romantic/platonic binary.
- Two from Pagemasters:
- Access Questions for Self-Publishing: Questions and reflections on how self-publishing can be made more accessible not just for disabled readers, but also for disabled publishers.
- Tranny Central: A gorgeous purple riso-printed history of the Gay Liberation Front’s Transsexual and Transvestite Group in the early 1970s in London.
- Five from ThatDeafZinester:
- Plus:
- We Keep Us Safe, a FREE zine about COVID, solidarity, and mutual aid!
- A Country That Doesn’t Exist: Drawing parallels between the author’s mother being from “a country that doesn’t exist”, the former Yugoslavia, and experiences of transition and being between genders.
- Prince Come Home: When Kaitlyn’s dog Prince is stolen by a rich chiropracter while she is unhoused and in crisis, her neighbours work together to help her get him back home.
- Remembering How 2 Draw: On the purpose and commodification of art making: “I offer stories about my own relationship to [art], how it started and changed over time. I ponder what making art does for others and myself and offer antidotes, questions, ideas and sentiments.”
- Elfland: After an 8 year old started building miniature houses for elves in a vacant lot, other neighbours began to expand it, and it became a community art project that prompted conversations about how we want our neighbourhoods to be.
Events
On October 13, I tabled at Hallowzine in Ottawa, ON, which was a lot of fun. From October 11 to November 5, my zines are also in the Spill Ur Gutz exhibit in Sacramento, CA, though I am sadly not there with them.
Upcoming events: I’ve applied to table at Expozine (Nov 24-25 in Montreal), so fingers crossed. I’ll also be selling zines at the Montreal Makers Market (December 14-15).
I’m hoping to do a LOTTTT of tabling in 2025, and most excitingly, I am planning to spend a chunk of time in Europe going to some small press/zine events and trying to get stuff stocked at stores over there.
Please let me know your favourite zine/small press events (anywhere in the world??) and also if you or a nice friend have a spare room in the UK, France, or Germany I am extremely interested.
Stockist news
This month, I restocked Another Story Bookstore in Toronto and Riley Grae in Winnipeg. I also have a new stockist! You can now find Sheer Spite stuff at Pegasus Books in Berkeley, CA. Pretty neat!
xoxoxo Lee
