Lavender Witch: debut album “Awakening” out soon!

The debut album “Awakening” of Lavender Witch will be out soon! Keep an eye out on this blog, on the blog of Lavender Witch, our Bandcamp page, and on Facebook.

Photo report of Journée pour la Défense de la Terre

Ugh, these are weird and scary times… So I distracted myself by writing a bit about an event I went to last month in Brussels:

On the last day of February, Jessica of Fake Breakdown Crafts and I tabled with our zines and crafts at the creative market at Journée pour la Défense de la Terre at Au Quai. I had a great time and I think Jessica did too. We had a good view over a wall on which shortfilms and documentaries were being projected about activist and anarchist struggles. We were surrounded by other creative people selling posters, books, and more. And there was a silkscreening station where I got a cool feminist T-shirt. Jelena who I had met at a zine workshop a while ago came by too and we explored the space some more. AuQuai has a great squatty vibe, is creatively decorated and I felt right at home.

Here are some more photos:

Free zine downloads for dark times

In these uncertain times when a lot of us are staying at home* to protect ourselves and others from the corona virus, it’s so important to have some distraction and fun things to occupy the mind. Not all of us can cope well with being locked indoors for several weeks.

One type of distraction can be reading zines, so here is a list of zines I’ve made or contributed to which are available to download for free in pdf format. You can read them on your screen or print them at home if you have a printer. Enjoy!

 

Feminist zines for International Women’s Day

FEMINIST ZINE BAG

For International Women’s Day ECHO presents:

Special limited edition feminist zine bag!

This is includes the following 7 zines:

• Same Heartbeats #14 (feminist perzine with a comic about manspreading, an interview with two queer-feminist activists/artists, feminist toilet graffiti, the adventures of my feminist band Lavender Witch, and more)
• Same Heartbeats #13 (feminist perzine which includes writings and drawings about gender identity/expression, a reminder that (lesbian)feminism should be trans-inclusive, feminist bands Team Dresch and Sleater-Kinney, the beginnings of my feminist band Lavender Witch, and more)
• Same Heartbeats #4 (feminist perzine with writings about women’s liberation rock bands, activism and building a feminist movement, body hair, some problems with academic feminism, Take Back the Night, the 70s feminist collective Dolle Mina, and more)
• Letter Soup (a 24-hour-zine with writings about consciousness-raising, radical cheerleading, language and gender, consent, some problems with gender studies publications, and more)
• From Spice Girls to Riot Grrrls (a 24-hour-fanzine about female musicians and bands, gender and age, and more)
• Dirty Lesbian (a 24-hour-zine about lesbophobia, like and hate lists, straight-feminist privilege, lesBIan heroines, and more – includes 2 mini-posters)
• Feminist Activist (a mini-zine filled with practical ideas and a map of feminist groups and projects in Belgium)

 

How to order?

Mail me to place an order. I accept paypal (different email address!) and bank transfers.

Price:

• Postage included to Belgium: 12 EUR
• Postage included to Europe: 18,50 EUR
• Postage included to the rest of the World: 20 EUR

Feminist zine bag available until March 15th 2020!

❤

More feminist zines available from my catalog!

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Take a look at some of the table of contents:

Zines I’ve read in 2020 (January + February)

These are the first zines I read in 2020! We’ve got zines about house bunnies, asexuality, invented languages, bigotry in progressive communities, rhubarb, halloween, and much more. I was so happy to discover and read all of these amazing little publications and can recommend them to you! If there is a zine you’re interested in, let me know and maybe I can give you their website/web shop/social media or get you in touch with the zinester or with a distro selling it.

In the last few years I’ve been writing monthly/bi-monthly mini-reviews of all the zines I read. I always felt it was important to let readers know about the wonderful self-made and self-published booklets that are out there and this was my way of shouting out that praise and helping to make some publicity. Personally I love reading reviews or feedback of my own zines so I can imagine it’s the same for other zinesters. But writing all of these reviews, even if they were very short, is quite time and energy consuming… I don’t know if that many people read my reviews and if anyone ever bought any of the zines I reviewed so I started to wonder if it was worth it to keep writing them. So I decided that this year, I won’t be writing regular reviews anymore but I’ll just post photos of the zines I read. It will become “Zines I’ve read: the photo edition”. That way I can still show you the precious publications I’ve recently read but I’ll save some time that I can spend on reading (and making) more zines!

Have a great zine-filled year! ❤

Brandnew zines, fresh from the copy shop

I had to endure one paper cut and one paper jam while printing and reprinting several different zines last week… Oh, the hardships of the zine maker! What must we endure to get our zines out into the world and into your hands!

Among others, I reprinted the ever-popular From Spice Girls to Riot Grrrls – my bestseller if I can call it that? I hope the two new zines will become equally loved and read!

I’m so proud of the split zine that Kirsty and I made together: Same Heartbeats #16/Forever Incomplete #12 is dedicated to “love” with plenty of hearts and passion on paper. We wrote about so many different things, from music to tv shows and crushes to friendship.

News & events: start of the zine season 2020 at Echo Zines!

I have lots of plans for 2020 as my new year’s resolutions already promised. This is only the start: