DIY feminist zines since 2001
This weekend I’m virtually tabling at PHX Zine Fest. Exciting! And what’s even more exciting is that I’ll also be participating in an online panel with international zinesters on November 14th. It’s at 18:30 CET or 10:30 Arizona time. Check the link below for the program and list of vendors.
More info:
You’ll be able to read more about it in Same Heartbeats #15 but here are already a few photos I took at Ladyfest Maastricht 2019:
Meeni Levi and I were invited to speak on a panel about alternative feminist media together with Sietske of the Bloed Aan De Muur podcast, moderated by Rubi of Maastricht Student Radio, who recorded it too (and shared it with Bloed Aan De Muur). It was a super interesting discussion!
Meeni Levi and I also tabled with our zines and sold really well (we didn’t know what to expect):
Here you can see a display of Ladyfest and other feminist/queer posters (including some made by me, ha!):
There were also plenty of workshops, performances and bands…
Ladyfest lives on! (For almost 20 years now – the first one took place in Olympia WA, USA in 2000! đź )
Some news and updates from my zine life: đ
NEWS
In the past few months I made a bunch of new zines:
Recently I was asked to contribute a illustration to the book The Feminist Revolution by D-M Withers and Bonnie J. Morris. It arrived in my mailbox not so long ago. Here you can see the cover and my illustration:
 
More illustration news soon!
EVENTS
RĂšgles d’A3 – opening exhibition
Friday March 8th
at ArsÚne café, in Namur
Group exhibition for International Women’s Day: 19 artists will show their work on women’s rights, on A3 format, to support the non-profit organisation BruZelle. The exhibition opens on March 8th and runs till April 6th and is organised by the DIY collective Chocs et Ennui. There will be a concert by Unluckid too.
Facebook event
Website of Chocs et Ennnui
Ladyfest Brussels
Friday-Sunday March 15-17th
at Brass, in Brussels
Ladyfest is a feminist DIY festival that is organised world-wide since 2000. I’m happy to see there is another edition in Brussels with a full program! Some zine friends and I will do a table with our zines. Come by and swap zines with us!
Facebook event
Alternatieve Boekenbeurs – zine table
Saturday March 23rd
‘t Landhuis, in Ghent
Yearly anarchist bookfair with plenty of alternative and activist book publishers, zine makers, and organisations. There is an interesting program of workshops and talks too and in the evening there is a concert and party. Attention: the location has moved to ‘t Landhuis: Warmoezeniersweg 19!
FEL and some of our feminist zinester-friends will share a table to present our zines, books, buttons, and stickers. Come and say hi and plan the revolution with us! đ
Facebook event
Website
Ladyfest Maastricht – panel about alternative feminist media
Saturday-Sunday May 4-5th
in Maastricht (Netherlands)
Ladyfest is a feminist DIY festival that is organised world-wide since 2000. This is the 3rd edition that takes place in Maastricht. With a full program of workshops, bands, and more you won’t be bored!
I will participate in the panel on alternative feminist media (from zines to blogs and podcasts). Not sure yet on which day the panel will take place but I’ll post it here as soon as I know.
Facebook
Website
Swansea Zine Fest – zine table
Saturday May 11th
Swansea, UK
Zine fest in the seaside town Swansea in Wales. I will table with my zines. Exciting!
Facebook event
Website
See you at one of these events!
Bloed Aan De Muur is a fun and interesting anarcha-feminist podcast broadcasting from Amsterdam. I’ve been listening to it from the beginning and I always look forward to a new episode. I’ve had a secret dream for a while that I wanted to start an anarcha-feminist pirate radio show or podcast one day, so I was overjoyed when I received an email asking me to participate in their next episode!
On November 25th the women of Bloed Aan De Muur organised a panel discussion for the 2nd anniversary of the Barricade Book Bar café at ACU, the autonomous centre in Utrecht (also in the Netherlands). The panel was about radical books and zines and I was invited to speak next to Rymke of the eco-anarcha-feminist publishers Atalanta, the poet Stella Legioen, Tessa of Barricade, and two women of Bloed Aan De Muur. The panel was recorded for their podcast, making it the first time for me on the anarcha-feminist air waves*. I was so honoured and also slightly nervous but it was a lot of fun to do this!
You can listen to the panel/podcast here.
I’m only posting this now because it took me a while to gather enough courage to actually listen to this episode of the podcast. It is quite scary to hear myself speak and I’m afraid I might have said some silly things. But well, I hope it wasn’t that bad and I definitely want to do it again!
*A long long time ago I was interviewed about Ladyfest on Belgian national radio in French (!) along with my co-organisers. My French was very bad at the time (it’s a bit better now) so I tried to keep my speaking to a minimum and left it to my French-speaking friends. I think this was my first general radio experience. đ
We’re slowly marching towards the end of this year’s Zine Writing Month… The final week has just started. Read all about my ZineWriMo 2018 adventures here.
In last Monday’s ZineWriMo post I was talking about music as brainfood and that same day I bought 4 CDs from two CD/record shops in Brussels! I went to a legendary music store called Caroline Records and to a cute small metal shop called Elektrocution. In those shops, I got two CDs by Veruca Salt that I had been searching for forever (well, since after the 90s as I remember spotting them in CD shops in the mid/late 90s but I lacked cash then) and two by Yngwie Malmsteen (for my zine research because I’m that dedicated :-p ). A few days later I also bought “Jagged Little Pill” by Alanis Morissette. Always fun to find good second-hand 90s / early 2000s CDs!
One of my goals for ZineWriMo was ticked off last week:
I finished Guitarrr #2!
Woohoo! That’s a least one zine that I made and finished this month. Phew! It is the follow-up of my Guitarrr #1 mini-zine and it explains a bit more advanced guitar (and bass) stuff. If you fold the mini-zine open you will see a poster with drawings of different brands and types of electric guitars and basses and who plays them. I’ll post some more info about this mini-zine and about how to order it soon on this blog.
Last week I also neglected or skipped several ZineWriMo prompts: for example updating my Zinewiki page(s), making zines together with friends and reading zines (apart from a few pages), but I hope to make up for at least that last prompt this week. I guess I was a bit too busy making music instead of zines because my band Lavender Witch played two concerts last week! (See photo)
Something I did do last week was taking part in a panel discussion about radical books and zines. It took place in ACU in Utrecht in the Netherlands on the 25th and was organised by the Barricade Book Café (as part of their 2nd year anniversary event) and the anarcha-feminist podcast Bloed aan de Muur. The discussion was also recorded for the podcast which made it extra exciting! Rymke of the eco-anarcha-feminist publishers Atalanta, a member of Barricade, and poet Stella took part too. We talked about our books/zines/poems/collectives, why we think they are needed in this day and age, inclusivity, self-organisation, and more.
Echo Zines 