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Zines |
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What's a zine? It rhymes with bean not line and is a small, home-made publication,
a bit like a magazine but usually produced for fun, not profit.
I've been making zines for many years. Start at the bottom of this page and work your way up if you want to know more. You could also read this extensive July 2007 Grrrl Zine Network interview. |
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What's in print?
To me, zines are highly ephemeral and this means that I don't keep stacks of back issues, or offer them as downloads - when they're gone, they're gone. My older zines are out of print, though The British Library and The Women's Library hold full and partial sets respectively, and I urge other zine makers to donate copies to them for archiving.
However, I generally have at least a few copies of my latest zines hanging around. Get in touch if you'd like any of them, they are free to a good home.
Big Bums
Bill Savage, Kay Hyatt, Simon Murphy and I have made a fat zine! It's
called Big Bums and is partially-funded by a grant from nolose, the
organisation for fat dykes and their allies. It looks bloomin' gorgeous and is
really brilliant, I'm so proud of it and can't wait for people to read
it.
We Are The Charlotte Cooper
A little zine by and about a bunch of gals who share the same name.
Working With Transgender Clients
A zine for trans people and therapists/counsellors who want to work with each other.
You Are A Lucky Man!
This is the zine that went with this performance.
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One-offs
Instead of making series of zines, I now tend to make a zine when the mood takes me and sometimes I collaborate with other people too. I still prefer the ease and cheapness of the folded A3 format but sometimes I make little A4 versions too.
Fat Stuff
I made a zine to protest my college's Obesity Awareness Week. It contained a resources list and ideas for things to do instead of worrying about being or getting fat. I left it around the campus for people to find.
any woman can be a lesbian
When The 123s do a performance we like to give away a zine to go with it. This one is about Lavender Jane's song.
Safety Pinz
I went to a 70s fancy dress party as a punk and made a zine to go with my outfit.
Cakey
A little zine about the delicious cakes my girlfriend and I ate whilst on holiday in Naples.
Things That Help Us Feel Good
In August 2007 I devised and facilitated a workshop about body image with a group 13 and 14 year-old girls for The Wellcome Institute. Together we made a zine of drawings of things that make us feel good in our bodies. |
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Story Zines
This was a series of simple, one-off stories about things that
interest me. I used to give them away for free. Some are autobiographical,
others are just made-up stuff. I used the folded A3 format.
The series ran from January 1997 until October 1992, the full alphabetically-ordered list being:
Beefer, the story of my nickname; Dad, about life with my father; Dead, what happened when half my family died; Dumb, about the Millennium Dome; Found, writing I found on the streets; Fuck, the zine that hooked me a book contract; Junk, about my teenaged obsession with heroin culture; Love,
about – duh! – being in love; Norge, some notes on visiting Norway for the first time; Nut, about mental illness; Scott, Antarctic heroes stripped down; Sing, about songs I like and dislike; Spa, spa towns, baths and water worship; Spice, some vignettes about the Spice Girls; Stratford, about the place where I live; Versace, about fashion, murder, mayhem; Village, whereupon I take a trip to deadsville; Womyn, all about my troubles with feminism.
Parts of Village were included in Jason
Barker's 1999 film Subterranean Homesick Blues.
One day I would like
to publish these zines together as a collection. |
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Kink
I did ten issues of Kink between 1996 and 1999. It started out as a kinky queer grrrl sex
zine, and ended up as a repository for odd little pieces of writing that
I was doing. Again it used the trusty folded A3 format. Have a look at the covers. |
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Best Friends
My first attempt at making a comic of my own. It's all about some of the intense friendships I had when I was a kid. I ripped off the format from Girly, a publication produced by Simon also known then as Mona Compleine. After years of stapling and collating
his 1980s fanzine Attack on Bereznik, Simon produced a simpler format, A5 zines made on folded, double-sided A3
paper. They cost so little to make that he could give them away for
free. |
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Writing for other people
It took me a while to develop the confidence to make my own zines and comics, but I was greatly encouraged by Lee Kennedy, FaT GiRL, ByPass and GirlFrenzy, all of whom published my work and allowed me to collaborate with them.
I continue to write for other zines, including those produced by and for Unskinny Bop, Homocrime, Size Queen and others. |
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all right
I started off in the early 1990s writing
scripts for comics, making a two-issue comic zine with
Simon Murphy. The content ranges from true stories of growing up, to flights of fantasy and alternate universes populated by our alter egos. They're full of odd little obsessions and in-jokes.
Download a bunch of scans and take a look.
all right (.pdf, 4.94mb)
all right 2 (.pdf, 9.31mb)
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