I hope you’re having a good summer. It’s been a busy one for me! Lots of writing + an internship at the Queer Zine Archive Project in Milwaukee + vending zines at Sappyfest in New Brunswick… I’m trying to stop and catch my breath, but there are so many projects I’m so excited about.
New zines!
Two new ones from me:
How to Find the Beauty Amidst All the Horrors is pretty self-explanatory: written in the context of the intensification of genocide in Palestine, it’s some thoughts on how to continue to find beauty in the world even/especially when things feel really fucked up.
Making Friends With Zines is a 60-page tribute to all the ways people can find each other and make and sustain connections through zines: trading through the mail, at zine fairs, by running a zine distro, on Discord, through zine libraries and zine librarianship, and by running a zine archive! (This zine was made as part of an internship at the Queer Zine Archive Project). It features interviews with Cindy Crabb, Amber Dearest, Jenna Freedman, Keet Geniza, Kelly McElroy, Chris Wilde, and my sibling, Clare, and contributions from Julia Gfrörer, LB, Ocean, Sage Pantony, Nat Pyper, Jen Twigg, Soph Warrick, Andi Vicente, and Alanna Why.
I also added a bonkers amount of excellent new stuff to the distro recently:
- Leather Trans – Gabe McHenry
- Own the Means of Production and Share It – India Johnson
- Notes on Libraries, Lesbians, and Pulp – Aiden M. Bettine
- The Late Night Copies Press Tiny Guide to Booklet Layout – India Johnson
- Millennial’s Guide to Fighting Fascism – Rena Yehuda Newman
- Organizing Without Organizations – Rena Yehuda Newman
- An Antidote for Queer Shame – Rena Yehuda Newman
- FTM Horndogs – Rena Yehuda Newman
- On The Grind – Rena Yehuda Newman
- 3 issues of Roan Boucher’s Privilege & Solidarity
- Beyond Equality – Roan Boucher
- People/Places – Roan Boucher
- let’s hear it for love! – Craft or DIY
- burnout protection mini zine + worksheet – Craft or DIY
- lakes aren’t always blue: on self-compassion in tough times – Craft or DIY
- everybody wants a pen pal but nobody wants to BE a pen pal, ya know? – Craft or DIY
- Great News! I Have Bipolar! – Emily T
- Death, too: a mini memoir on losing a friend to suicide, and being the alive one – Emily T
- Everything I’ve ever printed is really embarrassing???????? – Emily T
- On feeling like I can’t make art anymore (and finding out maybe it’s all in my head) – Emily T
- from doom to bloom: shifting my perspective on growing older – Emily T
- Automosity: A Collection of Automobile Animosity
- Spit Drip – Archie Bogiovanni
- Don’t Overthink What Feels Good – Archie Bogiovanni
- Weenies – Milo
- I’ll Have an “E”, please, Bob – Milo
- Dear Mama: A Letter from Michael to Mama by Armistead Maupin – Milo
- Bootch, Please – Milo
- Why? Why Make Zines in Times of Strife (and calm?) – Milo
- Metasnax – Milo
- Queer Space Communism – An Illustrated Manifesto – Milo
- Cometbus Zine #59: Post-Mortem – Aaron Cometbus
- a bunch of issues of Dwelling Portably
- Hard Candi – Andi V
- Little Noodle Boy – Caio V
- Love Will: Notes on Grief – Heather C
- Spill it: Questions to Ask At Parties – Heather C
Events
Coming up:
- September 2-9: Virtually tabling at the online portion of the Bay Area Queer Zine Fair!
- September 14-15: Tabling at What The Pop in Montreal!
- September 19 or 20: Montreal launch for Crossdresser // Accept Yourself or Die, details TBD. Reply to this email or follow the press on Instagram if you want to get the details when it’s announced!
- September 22: Toronto launch for Crossdresser // Accept Yourself or Die: a variety show with Rae Spoon, Theodore Walker Robinson, Gem Hall, and Tyler Reid!
The Ottawa launch for Crossdresser // Accept Yourself or Die was sooooo much fun. I am very grateful to everyone who came out! The wonderful Strast Media took some great event photos.
The book is now in its second printing (!!!). I am so thrilled that people have been enjoying it and supporting the authors.
SPEAKING OF SUPPORTING THE AUTHORS: Kat Rogue, who wrote the Crossdresser half of the book, is currently crowdfunding to help her be able to attend grad school and become a counselor. She deserves this, the world deserves this, let’s fucken gooo.
Some dream topics I’d especially like to publish work about:
I have some exciting stuff in the pipeline for Sheer Spite, and I also took a second recently to sit down and daydream about some topics I’d especially like to publish work about.
- Memoirs and other writing by elders, especially but not exclusively 2SLGBTQ+ and/or disabled elders and people with histories of resistance, organizing, and activism.
- Reprints and anthologies of older zines, esp centering around queerness, transness, disability, fat liberation, anti-racism, and organizing. (for ex, imagine an anthology of Dykes, Disability & Stuff????)
- Friendship & how to place it closer to the centre of life. What it looks like to plan deeply and intertwine lives with your friends.
- Reflections on communal & non-normative living arrangements like communes, cohousing, co-ops, land projects, punk houses, squats, etc, other non-Eurocentric and/or non-heteronormative ways of setting up a home and a life.
- Special Topics In Organizing + Counterculture: 1960s/70s radical leftist bank robberies, informants in social movements, cross-movement solidarity work
- Food, especially autobiographical, political, or reflective writing centring on food and eating and their place in life, especially in connection with any of the other topics on this list.
- Survival and preparedness from an anti-individualist, anti-ableist perspective
- Complicated and messy perspectives on disability, body difference, fatness, Madness, plurality, sickness, etc
- Death & end of life care & planning Experiences of incarceration and other forms of institutionalization
- Quakerism! (I was raised Quaker and still have some degree of connection with it)
If you want to write about any of these things, or can suggest someone who would, or know of zines I should distro around these topics, please get in touch!
Quick note about PACBI
Sheer Spite Press is the smallest of small presses and it’s pretty darn unlikely to come up, but I did want to make it clear and explicit that I will always abide by the terms of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). I hold membership in BDS Quebec as an additional commitment to these principles.
Thanks, I love you!
Lee
