I told folks who attended my workshop at the Chicago Zinefest that I would post my presentation on my blog for easy perusal, so here it is! Web-only viewers miss out on my witty banter and actual explanations, but…that’s cool. If you attended the workshop, feel free to comment with helpful suggestions or links to your work. Y’all were amazing, thank you so much!
–jb
Me and my whole non-abbreviated legal name (for good measure my middle name is Rebecca) will be peddling zines and maybe embarrassing myself verbally at the Zine Bazaar at the Radical Book Pavilion next Friday, September 28th! None know what wonders may await you.
jb.
It seems like all the things are happening all at once! The D.C. Zinefest was a smashing success, the Femme conference was an amazing weekend of supportive and babely femmes being brilliant, and somewhere along the way I officially moved to New Jersey. Pen pals new and old take note!
Pieces for the femme con art show– W3R3B1TCH3S #1 and #2
The detritus of mine and J.Ros’s “My Body’s Too Beardalicious For You Babe” crafting and facial hair workshop, in progress.
I hope to get back to regular posting soon, once I’m settled and not living out of a suitcase anymore! In the meantime, me and my scruffy zine suitcase will be at the Philly Feminist Zinefest on Sunday.
<3 jb
p.s. I will NOT have a new Femme a Barbe for the zinefest Sunday–I need about 3 more submissions to round out a really solid issue, since I’ve gotten a lot of submissions on the shorter side this go around. Send yr shit to sassyfrasscircus@gmail.com! Thanks boos.
If somehow you’ve missed all the information about the Zinefest, go to dczinefest.com or the Facebook invite and make yer plans to be there. I’ll have a brand new zine, Doykeit #1, ready and waiting.
<3 jb
That and moving and getting ready for this lil Zinefest Saturday (11-5 at St. Stephens Church in Columbia Heights). I’m also reading at the Bad Zine Everybody’s Fault Midwest-Invades-the-Capital event at the Dollhouse on Friday. Come give me a hug and say goodbye.
After that, you can catch me at FemmeCon in Baltimore, doing a workshop and showing some arts, and then at the Philly Feminist Zinefest with all the zines. I’ll have Doykeit #1 at the D.C. Zinefest and I will definitely have a new Femme a Barbe in time for the Philly Feminist Zinefest. The new Sassyfrass remains elusive. We’ll see.
JB
There should also be a form up on the DC Zinefest website soon, but in the meantime you can just email them to us. Kid-friendly workshops especially welcome!
JB
I’ve been working on putting together the materials for this event for the past couple of weeks and I think it’ll be really awesome! Also I am moving away at the end of the summer/ work a lot, so you should totally come so we can high five and hang out.
DC Zinefest is teaming up with the Fridge to bring you its famous popup library, zine readings, and a popup art show of zinesters from near, hither, and yon. At 516 1/2 8th Street SE (Rear Alley), Washington, DC 20003, 2 blocks from the Eastern Market metro.
Confirmed Readers include
Linsay from The Runcible Spoon
Jen from Jen[ny] Ambular
Rachel from Hoax
Lots more TBA
At $5, it’s a steal!
Come Support this amazing venue and the fest.
Flier by Amy Breesman
–jb
Hey buds,
The D.C. Zinefest is having a pop-up zine library and art show at the Fridge in D.C. on May 25th. If you are interested in participating, please email me at sassyfrasscircus@gmail.com with a high resolution jpeg of your art submission or for instructions on mailing zines. Zine/comics/DIY-culture related work is preferred–even a laid out zine page would be a cool submission. More information to come on the actual event! Comment or email with questions.
JB
On April 5th we held a pop-up zine library in the Women’s Studies Multimedia Studio at UMD (we being myself and Women’s Studies PhD student Melissa Rogers), as “a day-long celebration of feminist self-publishing and DIY cultural activism”. Overall I would say the event was a splendid success–we had a steady stream of visitors including 3 classes of undergrads who were very excited to get their hands on some typewriter keys and gluesticks. The “library” was comprised of several components–over 200 zines (basically mine and Melissa’s collections), alphabetized, cataloged, and shelved; two computers with tabs pulled up with online interviews, podcasts, distros, and archives; a reading area with a coffee table collection of books about zines; and zine-related craft activities, particularly making a page for a compilation zine and learning to make a mini-zine. The catalog, workshop instructions, as well as a list of zine-related resources was all combined into a program for the event. We definitely learned some lessons, like that over 200 zines looks kind of skimpy on a bookshelf, and don’t stand up very well, and are less attractive to browsers than zines hung up on ribbon with clothespins. In general though, I think that everyone who came had fun (I definitely did) and folks left with some new knowledge. This is sort of a quick update since as usual I’m multi-tasking, but I’ll probably post more pics, especially comp zine pics, later.
Here are a couple pictures–I tried to only grab ones with my friends in them so they can yell at me if they don’t want their pictures up, so these don’t capture the masses that descended upon the library, but they do capture some of the activities and the space.
Working on compilation zine pages.
Melissa teaches typewriter skills.
Mid-library carnage--the cardboard alphabet dividers proved no match.
I had to include Rachel's cute outfit.
Zine making is fun!
Anyway I’d love to talk to folks who have done or are interested in doing similar events–we’re planning to do a variation in D.C. in May through the D.C. Zinefest Collective.
–JB
