My watch & listen lists of 2021

Now that I’m in the mood for making those end-of-the-year lists, here are some with the music I’ve listened to in 2021 as well as recommended videos/series/films and podcasts:

How to celebrate a zine anniversary in a pandemic?

How to celebrate a zineversary or zine anniversary in a pandemic?

Hmmm, honestly I’m not so sure… This summer it’s been 20 years since I put out my very first zine called Punk Feminist Mini Zine and I’ve been wanting to do “something” to celebrate that. In May I wrote down a list of ideas on this blog but some of those ideas seem hard to put into practice at the moment because of the ongoing pandemic (zine residency, zine tour, zine party?) even though I’d very much like to make them happen. I’m also not much of an “organiser” so even in non-covid times I wouldn’t really know how to go about some of my ideas.

But at least I have done some stuff… and plan to do some more:

International Zine Month 2021 – youtube zinesters

Bored? Tired? Try watching some zine-related YouTube channels today! Stolen Sharpie Revolution says:

“Check out YouTube channels about zines- here are some to visit!

• Brown and Proud Press
• Zinespiration
• Zine Cuisine
• Zine Collector
• Bunny Ears Reviews“

Some YouTube channels that I enjoy watching:

• Feral Comics (zine reviews and other zine-themed vlogs)
• Sea Green Zines (happy mail, vlog/podcast about zines)
• Twenty Two Zines (videos for all the International Zine Month prompts)
• Zinespiration (interviews with zinesters)
• Zine Reviews (new channel with thematic zine reviews)

There’s also a video series of zine readings that the LCC Zine Library curated for International Zine Month: Voices from the Underground. They’re adding a new video every week of July but the names of all the zinesters are already known. I still have to watch them but I’m very excited about it because two of them are among my favourite zinesters and another one is a new zinester to discover (and oh, yours truly is part of it as well).

Can you recommend other YouTube channels about zines?

By the way, in an older blogpost I compiled a list of zine-focused podcasts that contains some vlogs as well. Check it out for more zinetertainment and enjoy today’s International Zine Month prompt! ❤

Echo news overview: what have I been up to (June 2021)

I haven’t done one of these updates in a while but now there are a bunch of things I’d like to share. So this is a list of news and announcements about projects I’ve been involved in lately, going from zine readings, exhibitions, and virtual zine fests to illustrations, podcasts, and music.

Even though the pandemic and semi-lockdown are still going on, I’m lucky to find a lot of options to remain creative and do stuff from home. It’s what gets me through these days and puts a smile on my face (same in non-lockdown times actually – seems like my life hasn’t changed that much). Please stay safe & enjoy reading my Echo “newsletter”:

Contributions: drawings I’ve made for other zines and projects

I make a lot of zines on my own but sometimes I contribute to other zines as well. I’m also an illustrator so I regularly make illustrations for a variety of projects. I actually have a blog for my drawings but I don’t keep it up to date very well… So instead I’d like to make a list of recent illustrations here (even if just so I don’t forget).

Here are some zines and other projects I’ve recently made drawings for:

Interview at Superbeast podcast

A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by, or better: had a conversation with, the people behind Superbeast podcast. It was fun to talk about art, music, zines, politics, and the ongoing pandemic. I also chose a few songs that they played on the show and they even invited me to make a jingle for the podcast! Listen to Episode 15 here and check their previous jingles on Bandcamp.

More info and the zines we reviewed:

Ladyfest Maastricht 2019 rocked!

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! 😮 )

Bloed Aan De Muur – podcast episode about radical books and zines

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. 🙂

ZineWriMo 2018 – fourth week (playing music, panel discussions and ziiines)

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.