A New Zine for Women’s History Month

For Women’s History Month, I dug into my own history.   Several years ago, I started a zine about the books that shaped my ideas of feminism and femininity, but I set it aside.  I revisited the idea back in 2011 when Bitch Magazine published their list of books for the young adult feminist reader, and the resulting controversy over the titles left me too intimidated to share my own such list.  It took a while, but I got over my intimidation.

Here is the final version of Being a Girl: A Recommended Reading List:

If you peek inside, you can see it is a mix of the old (typed) and the new (handwritten).  My original book picks and comments are unedited, but I couldn’t resist adding my current thoughts.

You can order it online here.  

Also, if you are interested in books and feminism, you might check out a new series from First the Egg in which feminist readers share childhood favorites and current children’s book picks.  Watch for my contribution, and share your thoughts in the comments! :)

Zinefest 2012

I spent this past Saturday immersed in the best of local DIY publishing at the Twin Cities Zinefest.  It was a lot of fun, but I must say that I was so completely exhausted by the end of the day.  The highlight for me was The Penny Project.  You might recall from last year that the table next to me was offering pennies for your thoughts with the promise to collect the thoughts into a zine for the following year.  They made good on their promise, though I am sad to say that not only did I not leave a thought this year, but I actually forgot to buy the Penny Project zine.  I am so disappointed!  Here’s hoping it finds its way into Infinite Monster’s Etsy shop.

I was inspired by the Penny Project last year to try my own interactive element to my Zinefest table this year.  I’m always curious about what people have read, and I figured that zinesters would have excellent taste in books.  I was right, of course.  :)

I loved talking books with people, and I’ll be blogging more about all the responses I got later this week.  So stay tuned!

I sold out of Adrift and Fake Arm 101 (which is the updated version of this zine from last year), and I met so many interesting people.  All in all, I would count the 2012 Zinefest a success!  Thank you to everyone who made it possible. :)

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My zines are available for purchase online in my zine shop.

In anticipation of Mother’s Day

A couple of Mother’s Days ago, I wrote my story as part of a writing class for moms.

We were supposed to explore what motherhood has meant to us and how we have changed since becoming mothers.  What started in that class eventually became a zine, Will There Be Smoking? (and other questions), that covered the usual mom stuff along with what was personal to me–the creative block that plagued early motherhood for me and my step away from the religion of my youth.

This Mother’s Day, I am particularly grateful.  The past four years have meant many changes for my family, and we are happier for them.

Do you know a mom interested in exploring doubt?  Why not buy my zine?  It makes a great gift. :)

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For more about secular family life, see my Secular Thursday page.

Art & Artpolice in an afternoon

Sometimes I actually manage to get out on the town without a four-year-old in tow.  This usually happens with weeks of planning and with a definite Plan for the Evening, but a couple of weekends ago, we were spontaneously without child for an afternoon and evening.  I knew just what I wanted to do: the latest exhibit at the Walker Art Center.

I’m not sure I really qualify as an “art person” since I really know very little about it, but I am pretty much exactly what you would call a “zine person.”  And it isn’t every museum exhibit that puts zines on display.  Frank Gaard: Poison & Candy is a retrospective exhibit that features the work of Twin Cities art legend, Frank Gaard.  In addition to Gaard’s provocative paintings featuring religious and sexual imagery, the exhibit also includes illustrations from the Artpolice zine that he edited for decades which satirized the art world with wit and humor.  Mpls.St.Paul Magazine described it this way: “Artpolice was free speech in all its messy glory, a place where stupidity and brilliance co-existed on the same page, creating a hilariously subversive form of cognitive dissonance.”

I was, of course, intrigued by the description.  If you are similarly intrigued, I recommend the exhibit.  Leave the kiddos at home.

You can learn more about Frank Gaard and see photos of his home and work in this piece from MPR or hear him talk about his work in a gallery talk on February 9th.

 

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Disclosure: I am not affiliated with the Walker Art Center. My family received a gift membership to the Walker from my parents. Thanks, Mom and Dad! :)

Zinefest 2011

This year’s zinefest was different for me.  Instead of popping in to browse the tables for an hour or so, I was sitting at a table for most of the afternoon watching people walk by.  I was grateful to be next to some very interesting tables.  On one side there was this:

As you might imagine, it attracted a fair amount of attention.  Some people were confused about whether they got to take a penny or had to give one, but most got it and were delighted.  I was  surprised at how few people asked about what was going to happen to the thoughts.  In case anyone reading is wondering, the thoughts will be immortalized in zine form to be sold at next year’s zinefest.  If you need one reason to come back next year, that’s it.   I am sure that Monica will be doing something very interesting.  I picked up her children’s story “The Land Sick Pirate.”  It’s very cute, and I think that Ladybug will like it.

The table to my left was also quite eye-catching.  Tiffany, the artist behind Hyena Zine, had several handmade hyenas decorating her space:

The adorable hyenas were accompanied by comics that satirize relationships.  Highly recommended for anyone interested in feminist issues.

I also traded for a zine by illustrator Aimee Pijpers about people who ride the bus.  As a regular bus commuter, I know many of the people/types profiled in this small zine.  I look forward to the second installment.   Greer Lawson was giving away copies of her zine A Bunch of Different Kinds of Ponies, which is rather amusing.

The zinesters involved in the fest contributed to the How-To Encyclopedia, which includes lots of great information.  Zines aren’t just for poetry and personal expression.   They can be useful resources too. I contributed a page with tips for talking to kids about people with physical disabilities or differences.  One of my suggestions was, of course, read books about people who are different.  I directed people to my wiki for suggestions.  Here is the list for those who want to get started now before their kids start asking (or if you just want to explore some interesting books).

Happy reading!

I had the same zines for sale at the fest as I did back in July at Genrebeast.  The most popular item was What People Say, which is a zine about the things people have said to me about my prosthetic arm.   I got some good feedback, and I feel even more inspired to write and create zines.  Thank you to everyone involved in the 2011 Twin Cities Zinefest for a great afternoon.

I’m already looking forward to next year!  Meanwhile my zines are available for online purchase here.

 

 

Even Just Grace likes zines, or Zinefest 2011

Just Grace is the eight-year-old heroine in series of children’s novels.  In Just Grace and the Snack Attack she finds zines,

“At first I was disappointed because it seemed like the whole present was just a piece of paper. But after we looked at it together and she explained it, I was a lot more excited.  Augustine Dupre said that the little paper was called a zine, and that zines were popular with people who liked to draw comics and tell stories.  People just like me.”

The book also includes a several page-long how-to section for a beginning zinester.  Speaking of how-to’s, you can pick up a copy of the How-to Encyclopedia created by local zinesters at the Twin Cities Zine Fest this weekend.  More info here.

Don’t miss it.  Zinesters know DIY.

Not to mention, I’ll be selling zines there.  :)

What Changed (Or What I’ll Be Doing Tonight)

They say motherhood changes you. “They” say a lot of things, but they seem to have this one right.

It isn’t like it was totally unexpected.  I had read Deborah Copaken Kogan’s memoir of going from hard boiled photojournalist on the frontlines of news to a woman all but completely immersed in the “mommy wars.”  And I’d read Alice Flaherty’s The Midnight Disease, which includes a candid discussion of her post-partum hypergraphia. I felt like I knew the risks.

(Do you ever really know the risks?)

My risks turned out to hit very close to my heart.*  For one–this is perhaps the least life changing–it altered my perspective on the books I read.  Children’s books had been my chosen career for years before I had a child, but once I became a mother, the stories had a new life.  I was not only in the young protagonist’s perspective, but I also keenly felt the mom’s point of view even if it wasn’t strongly present in the story.  Teen novels, in particular, often delve into mother-daughter relationships in ways that can be hard for me to read.

Bitter End by Jennifer Brown didn’t even get into mother-daughter drama, and I still struggled with it.  For those not familiar with the book, it is the story of a teen girl in an abusive relationship.  As I read, I kept thinking how unrealistic it was. She’s a smart girl with strong friendships. It wouldn’t happen to her. Or, at least, it wouldn’t happen that quickly.  Eventually, I had to admit to myself that it wasn’t that the book was unrealistic.  I didn’t want it to be real.

Books were the least of the changes though.  I wrote about some of the other changes in a zine (pictured right with another zine) called Will There Be Smoking? and other questions.  I’ll be selling this zine and others tonight at the second installment of a summer music series called Genrebeast, which brings together a diverse lineup of musicians.

If my writing isn’t enough to entice your attendance tonight, there will also be The Idle Hands, 2012, Dewi Sant, and FDR.

If you can’t catch the show tonight, I will be participating the the Twin Cities Zine Fest in September. Be sure to mark your calendar.

 

*I am not remotely implying that motherhood isn’t worth it. It is.  The zine actually focuses on what was a difficult but very positive change.

How to be an ally

I posted a bit about I am J by Cris Beam in a post about the healing power of art, but now that the book is officially available for purchase, I wanted to bring it up again.  I am J has gotten three starred reviews so far and lots of positive attention for being one of the few books for teens on the transgender experience.  Here is a line from the book that Kirkus included in its review that I like:

Being trans wasn’t special, and yet it was. It was just good and bad and interesting and fucked-up and very human, like anything else.

Cris Beam is also the author of the award winning book Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers.  Act 1 of the This American Life episode Living the Dream from 2001 featured Cris Beam talking about the girls she worked with while writing Transparent.  It is definitely worth checking out–the book and the TAL ep.    Beam’s understanding of the culture around transgender teens who are struggling to find their place in a world that doesn’t always know what to do with them shows in I am J.    For those of us unfamiliar with the transgender experience, this book can open a door that needs to be open.  But for transgendered teens themselves, it is so important that they find this book and the few others that are out there.  It is so important that they know they are not alone.

Here in the Twin Cities:

• Trans Youth Support Network
• Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition
• Rainbow Health Initiative
• Quatrefoil Library

Want to be an ally?  Here is a pdf of a zine called Tranzmission written to help people close to transgendered individuals.

Being a girl (in books)

Girl in the Know by Ann Katz

I love Girl in the Know.  If you know a girl between the ages of 11 and 13, buy her Girl in the Know.  It’s a fabulous book that covers all the questions from bras and periods to exercise and self esteem.  Being a girl isn’t easy.*  Books like this are important.

I only have one tiny, little quibble with it.  On page 47, in the chaper “Turning On and Tuning In,” there is a reading list with the tag line “Curious about other girls’ experiences?”  Among the nine books are a few of classics (Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and Anne Frank), a couple of award winners (Kira-kira and Princess Academy), one popular chick lit title (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), one I didn’t recognize at all (Losing Forever), and two with which I’d like to take issue: Parvana’s Journey and Love, Stargirl.  Mainly, both are sequels.  I guess they basically stand alone, but why not choose the story that came first?  I guess neither of these books really stood out to me as particularly noteworthy, but that’s just one reader’s opinion.  (As a sidenote, I did really like Stargirl.)

A few years ago, I started working on a zine that I tenatively called “Being a Girl: A Reading List.”  I never finished it because choosing just a few books to cover all of femininity is actually kind of an intimidating a task.  The book that started the zine concept was Betty Smith’s Joy in the Morning.  I read it shortly after I had gotten married, and it seemed appropriate because it is about a young married couple.  It wasn’t necessarily my favorite book ever, but it changed my perspective.  The girl in the book had to worry about getting kicked out of college for getting married.  She had a great husband, but he wasn’t exactly a help-around-the-house partner.  I guess I realized how drastically women’s lives had changed in a relatively short amount of time.  Have I mentioned that my husband is a wonderful cook and better at housecleaning than I am?  I am grateful for this and more.

What would I choose for a nine book “Being a Girl” list for pre-teens? The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle for sure.  Maybe Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan.  If we’re talking teens, it gets easier to choose.  Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is number one, and, to be honest, I recommend it even to adult girls.  Not That Kind of Girl by Siobhan Vivian is a provocative look at female sexuality for teens.  It would make the list easily.  Maybe Hattie Big Sky for a little historical perspective and Weetzie Bat for some magic.  I’d put Dicey’s Song on the list, but it’s a sequel. It stands alone, but didn’t I already take issue with that somewhere?  I guess this isn’t as easy as I thought.

Bitch Magazine learned that the hard way this week.  First they published 100 Books for the Young Adult Feminist Reader.  It was a fabulous list.  It spread around the Internet quickly.  That’s when the controversy began.  Chasing Ray has a great run-down of the issue in How Not to Stand Up for (Some) Literature as Explained by Bitch Media.
Maybe one day I’ll finish that zine.  Right now I’m feeling a little intimidated.

*Being a guy may not be easy either.  I am not commenting on that as I have no personal experience with it.