doris zine blog

upcoming events - please repost

2012-02-12T13:10:00.001-08:00

Doris West Coast Readings!!!

2/26 Sunday at 5:00 at Rock Paper Scissors, 2278 Telegraph Ave, Oakland
http://rpscollective.org/zine-reading-feb-26th-cindy-crabb-of-doris/

2/29 Wednesday at 7:00 Modern Times Bookstore,
2919 24th St, SF
http://www.mtbs.com/events.html

3/9 Friday at 7:00 Reading Frenzy, 921 SW Oak St, Portland OR
http://www.readingfrenzy.com/index.php

3/11 Saturday at Evergreen college, not sure of time. This will be a talk, not a reading

3/12 Monday at 7:30 Left Bank Books, 92 Pike St, Seattle WA with Peregrine of Entropy zine and hopefully Neely of Mend My Dress zine!!!

new zines from dorisdorisdoris.com/zines

2012-01-23T15:32:00.000-08:00

Entropy
The most powerful and hopeful zine I've ever read about incest survival, body memory, trauma and healing. Peregrine spent years writing it. It is not a raw testimonial, but an unfolding of his story, starting with his discovery that he was a childhood incest surviver, with intense body memories but not many specific fact memories - and the difficulties of belief and denial, within himself and his family.
So many men I know are sexual abuse survivors, and I have seen very few zines written by men about it. I know this zine will help so many people. It is great regardless of your gender!
I recommend this zine for everyone - regardless of whether or not you are an abuse survivor. It is an essential peice of writing for us all.

Ilse Content #10
Stories about how Alexis interprets and remembers Home. Beautiful, haunting, stream of conciousness style writting about her childhood homes, ghosts and dreams, the smell of her mother, pretending to be in Little Women, Her current house which makes her not want to run so far, preparing to move by preparing her heart and body for the home that will come along.

Hoax #6: Feminisms and communication
Another great issue of this zine! In this issue they "aim to explore these questions and others: 'How are knowledge/power transmitted though tone/words/body language? What makes us feel visible and what makes us feel silences or erased? How do we understand ourselves and how do others read us? How do we move forward after breakdowns in communication...." It includes a huge array of really excellent stories, articles and thoughts and critiques including "Academic Language and Power..." Slutwalk, "What Washed Faggot" and the invisibility of queer Asian literature, philosophy and theory, why it is not ok for people who aren't black to use the word Nigger, the idea of progress, and so much more!

Words Are Not Enough: Lip Service to Two Years Working With People in Crisis
This important zine is about working at a domestic violence shelter and a homeless families shelter: bearing witness to the people's stories and dealing with the ways the shelter system and staff members dehumanize the people who come there. Harsh and real and so necessary, it says "I want so much to know when shelters became so much like prisons..."
It ends with ideas on how to create shelters that provide support without becoming oppressive forces themselves. It says "What I'm looking for is a shelter system that is founded in radical thinking and in solidarity with other movments - one that is not just trying to rush-rush remedy a problem but one that is hoping to abolish the problem while giving people refuge and resources in the meantime."

Skinned Heart #3
The power of female friendships and support; fallouts and exploring the causes; sexism and wanting to learn from the collective pain and miscommunications; being a radical feminist in denial of the abusive relationship she was in; the loss of a few white friends; gardening; "I think a lot about punk and activism and the impression that each of those communities have left on me. I think about how much I have learned about people and communication.I think about how much my friends mean to me and how much they have meant to me. I can't imagine who I would have been if I had not come into contact with these people... I started to forget what I was all about. I really lost a sense of my own culture, my sense of Browness, and I forgot how to connect with people who weren't punks..."

Rot 1
People standing up to abuse. death of pet rat, father, friends, strangers in struggle. what do we do. murdered by cops, rapists, the systmatic murder of women in Ciudad Juarez. All tied together.
Beautiful poster-worthy drawing "Herbalist Bat Girl Conquers the Unexplained Panic Attack," and more.

High on Burning Photographs #8
This issue is mostly about a really hard breakup, the kind that just completly destroys any sense of self, and then starting to regain that self. Growing up in cycles of abuse and promising to oneself not to repeat those behaviors: "but maybe you've made a similar promise to yourself, and broken it, and if you ever have, maybe you know how awful it feels to realize that you can't fulfill it, that you are at a point where your deamons are eating you alive, where you can't ask for help or even realize that you need to ask for help, where you scared someone who genuinely loved you and wanted good things for you..."

Spellbook For Reckless Children
From London. Included in it is a beautiful, tiny zine with directions for an adventure which sounds totally fun (but requires that you live in a city with busses).
Living as kid near a high-security psychiatric hospital, "I'm not sure at what point my fear of people escaping turned into a fear of being the one not allowed to escape." Being expelled from highschool for vaguely talking about suicide and then sent away to boarding school. Feeling seen for the first time, and then that boy turning abusively jealous, "I told myself It's more likely I would kill myself without him that it is that he would kill me."
Finding an imaginary friend, collecting found objects, Zines and creating as a human need, not self-indulgent; and what bullshit the idea of what constitutes a "real" writer. Hope and magic.

up coming E.Coast and W.Coast readings

2011-11-27T14:49:00.000-08:00

Upcoming Events:
Sun Dec 4, Providence RI. 280 Broadway, 6:00 zine readings!
Monday Dec 5, Pratt, Brooklyn reading and talk
Tuesday Dec 6 New School, NYC. 6E 16th St room 1107, 8:00pm reading and talk

tenative dates and venues:
Feb 26-29 various Bay Area readings - Rock Paper Scissors, Modern Times, etc. stay tuned for dates and times

March 9, Friday Portland OR, Reading Frenzy
March 10, Sat. Olympia WA Public Library, zine writing workshop
March 11, Sun. Olympia - Evergreen College, reading and talk
March 12, Monday. Seattle WA - Left Bank Books, zine readings

more new zines

2011-11-27T14:48:00.000-08:00

more new zines available at my distro www.dorisdorisdoris.com/zines

Shotgun Seamstress Fanzine #6
The last issue of one of my very favorite zines Shotgun Seamstress!!! a zine for, by and about Black punks, queers, feminist, artists, musicians and activists. Issue #6 includes an interview with the band Trash Kit, a conversation with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. A really excellent and interesting interview with a woman who owns a tattoo shop in New Orleans. A great Manifesta, an article/story about punks in Rio de Janerio, and a bunch more!!! So good!

Butch nor Femme #1
Thoughtful zine about various things they've been trying to sort through: the word "fucked", an ex-friend yelling at them in public, some sweet stories, and a powerful and brave piece called "I got what I wanted" about being manipulative in sex. I am particularly grateful for this story! I know it will help lots of people realize behavior patterns and begin to change!

Butch nor Femme #2
Loving Femme, but not being femme, and wanting other ways of being feminine to be seen. Sleeping with their cock on for the first time. "For me, the idea that I'm actually OK as I am, that there is nothing "wrong" with me or what I want/need, is shocking and a bit revolutionary." Quitting their Facebook account - thinking about how they want to interact with people. Even though I don't use social media, I thought this was interesting, especially because they still use tumblr and twitter - so it's not an anti-social media thing or a political-against-Facebook thing, but rather a real look at how Facebook affects their life.

Seaglass
a zine about quitting drinking. "Not drinking hasn't fixed all of the broken parts inside of me, but I don't feel like such a secretive mess..." Interesting little section about weird things to drink other than booze. Anxiety and social situations, learning to deal with impatience. books that helped.

Cat Power #1: a Riot Grrrl Zine
critiques of mass culture images and messages - this zine starts with a reprint of Kathleen Hanna's Riot Grrrl Manifesto (which I've always loved) and continues on to critiques of Lady Gaga's use of gang rape imagery, the food industries manipulation of our food sources (GMS's, advertizing, etc), gender, body image, American Apparels soft-core porn advertising and the sexist, abusive CEO of the company, and a beautiful creative fiction piece called "In Which We Battle Pink Robots".

Cat Power issue #2
Cassie writes about how she started this zine for two reasons: because she wanted more girls to have an outlet and to get involved with things they love, and also because she hated being a girl and wanted to change that. This issue includes a celebration of body hair, a story about being forced by society to perform as male and how much social pressure there is when you're seen as a guy to be disgusted by all things "feminine", also an article about being a woman bassist in a male dominated music scene and more.

Reimagining Queer Community
"...a personal investigation into (their) evolving relationship to the term queer ... the myth of cohesive queer communities, being a spectator versus being a participant, queer histories, and potential strategies to build alliances." plus queer theory academia derailing social justice conversations - and how fucking horrible and telling it was that they majored in queer studies and never learned about HIV/AIDS, the horror of it and the activism around it.

Hyena in Petticoats: A Mary Wollstonecraft Zine
This thick zine is all about the amazing writer, feminist, activist from the 18th century and her family. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the excellent "Vindication of the Rights of Women," and mother to Mary Shelly (was wrote Frankenstein when she was 18). Their stories are really interesting! Written by Alexis Wolf of Ilse Content zine.

Ghost Pine #10: Wires
includes an installment of a hysterical story about high school - gym class, punk, a bunch of really funny characters. Also a sweet story about staying in a tent on a San Francisco rooftop, and going to a generator show that where the generator doesn't show up, so instead they help some people who are getting evicted.

Ghost Pine #11: Crows
Another installment of the high school story "The Social Justice Club". Plus sweet little vignettes of friends and love, office spaces, writing, suburban diners, punk

Ghost Pine #12: Water

new zines

2011-11-06T19:12:00.001-08:00

Stunned Lungs
If you have ever read the poet Shannon Olds, you know how poetry can tell a story stronger than a story itself. That's what this zine is like. If you like poetry at all, you should get this. It is amazing. The poems tell a story of their mothers home a feeling of vertigo and suffocation; a story of body and sex, and such deep everything you really must read it.

You've Got a Friend in Pennsylvania #4
Really open discussion of relationship stuff that a lot of us go through - trying to break the cycle of managing the pain of breaking up by finding a new relationship. The identity crisis that can happen when you identify as queer but your relationship is seen by the world as hetero. Coming out as trans and the lack of support within some feminist circles, support from zine readers and their partner, and asking friends to use nutral pronouns.

You've got a Friend in Pennsylvania #5
Working in an organic produce packing coop and dealing with racism and sexism, being trans but not out at work, learning to pick your battles.

Telegram Ma'am
I wish Miranda lived here so we could be friends and have writing group together. Their Ine is the kind of zine that made me want to start writing zines in the first place. They write about their personal experiences with enough distance and care that they become not purging, but rather small maps that can help us to look at our own lives and the beauty of how we survive and become more fully the people we want to become.

Telegram Ma'am: Stealing Lilacs
Miranda talks about really serious things with such honest and enough humor to make it joyful to read even when it is about being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, spending time in a treatment center for anxiety and depression, getting sober, coming out as gender queer. There's a great article called "Be Your Own Therapist," which discusses creativity, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, the ER, and letting go.

Moon Root: an exploration of Asian Womyn's Bodies
issue #1. Seven writers explore, in verse, story and essay issues of body, history, assimilation, racism, politics and family and secrets and queerness and gender and identity and more. Super beautiful and powerful work!

Ship of Fools
I love this comic zine! I like how each issue gets more complex, both drawings and content, just like life.

Hoax #5: Feminism and Community
Exploring the topic of community. Articles about Queer land movements, dealing with being jealous of other girls, "Saved By Rock and Roll", The International Girl Gang Undergound, supporting emerging feminists, and much more

Figure 8
I am so happy to finally be carrying this zine in my distro! It has been one of my favorite zines for awhile now - a zine "devoted to the radical idea of fat liberation and fighting sizism"

Summertime #1: A Graphic Novel If I had been a comic artist instead of a writer, there's a time in my life when I probably would have drawn a zine a lot like this one. It's about black-out drinking and fucking strangers. Love and friendship and body hate and abuse, self-destruction, addiction and punk. I love this zine! So sad but also somehow redemptive and so powerful!

Shotgun Seamstress number 2: Everybody Say Love
“a zine by and for Black Punks, Queers, Misfits, Feminists, Artists and Musicians, Weirdos and the people who suuport us. This zine is meant to support Black People who exist within predominantly white subcultures, and to encourage the creation of our own." Reflections on hardcore in the '80's in DC when punk and reggae and/or gogo bands played on the same bill + how cool go-go was!!! Check it out!!!
Articles: Punk and Black are the same thing. Interview: with all-women psychedelic rock and roll band. Book Review: Letting it All Hang Out, by RuPaul. Culture Clash: dread meets punk rockers. + more!

tons more new zines! + upcoming readings

2011-11-03T16:09:00.001-07:00

I have a ton of new zines in the catalog! Check it out at dorisdorisdoris.com/zines

I'll be doing a couple readings in NYC in December - on the 5th at Pratt and on the 6th at the New School!

new zines

2011-09-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

new zines at doris distro ... www.dorisdorisdoris.com/zines
It's Down to This: reflections, stories, experiences, critiques and ideas on community collective response to sexual violence, abuse and accountability

this huge zine (100 pages!) is a tremendous resource for people who are committed to ending sexual violence. The past few years have seen an upsurge of community-accountability processes of dealing with assault - and lots of questions and issues these processes have raised. This zine collects a mulititude of stories, reflections and articles - from advice on finding a therapist, written by a perpetrator who is in an accountability process, to articles describing what different accountability groups look like, to raw stories of the failure of radical communities to step up and offer support to survivors. Intense and essential zine for people doing this work.

Mend My Dress: issues 7+8
Featured in the book Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism, Mend My Dress is a zine mostly about sexual abuse survival, about girl power, and girl love. Issues 7 and 8 come together in one envelope. Stories of an abusive relationship and getting out of it, problems with an IUD, what to do when your abusive ex-boyfriend starts dating someone you work with, how to keep girl-love-girl-power alive, stories of birth, stories of home.

columbus, bloominton, chicago

2011-08-28T14:17:00.001-07:00

OK! Here is the update on my upcoming readings:
Columbus OH, Thursday Sept 1; Skylab - 57 E Gay St. 10:00 pm.
Bloomington IN, Friday Sept 2; The Owlry; 212 S. Rogers St, 10:00 pm.
Chicago IL, Saturday Sept 3; Quimby Bookstore; 1845 W North Ave; 7:00 pm

new zines

2011-08-24T16:46:00.000-07:00

New zines at Doris Distro. www.dorisdorisdoris.com/zines

Get Fit for the Pit #1: A zine on Taking Back Our Health and Fitness
Excellent compilation zine by punks about getting physical activity in their lives – not preachy or creepy at all. It's so great to see how different people find different ways to get active - Roller Derby, Yoga, Rugby, Hooping, the Gym, Running, Hiking.

An Essay by David "Spoonboy" Combs on Sexism and Rape Culture in Punk
everyone should read this - even if you're not a punk

An Activist Approach to dealing with Domestic Violence
This zine came out awhile back, and really needs to be in circulation. It's got really great articles and powerful interviews with people who work against Domestic Violence, who have survived domestic violence, and people who have recognized their own violent behaviors and have worked to change themselves. Articles include: Challenging Assumptions about Domestic Violence, Why Should Men Care about Sexual Violence, Organizing for Our "No Use for Abuse" Weekend, and much more.

Upcoming Encyclopedia of Doris readings

2011-07-30T06:42:00.001-07:00

My book is coming out next week!
Upcoming Reading Tours:
August 11: Asheville NC, Malaprops Bookstore 7:00
September 23: Baltimore MD, Anarchist book fair; 6:00
September 24: Philadelpia PA, Wooden Shoe Bookstore; 7:00
September 25: NYC, Bluestockings Bookstore
September 26: Brooklyn, Bookthug Nation
September 27: North Hampton, MA, Food For Thought
September 28: may be somewhere in Vermont
September 29-30: Montreal
October 1-2:
October 3: Toronto
October 4: Pittsburgh

go to this event if you can

2011-07-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

Come witness some Good Old Fashion Queer Magic
in The New Road Home Tour 2011!!

they are playing in Denver, Lawrence, chicago, Portland ME, Philladelphia, Pittsburgh. for more info check out Nomy's site at http://www.nomylamm.com/

DavEnd, Nomy Lamm, Melodie Younce and Erin Daly will remix notions of gender, sexuality, dis/ability, community and family, while tenderly, ferociously touching into themes of forgiveness, hope, and empowerment in these supposed "end times."

Pittsburgh
August 13th. Saturday. 8 pm
Irma Freeman Center for Imagination
5006 Penn Avenue 15224
$7 - 12 Sliding Scale - Noone Turned Away!

The "New Road Home Tour 2011" explores the new possibilities for the embodiment of dreams. This performance includes multi-part harmonies, multi-media displays of affection, badass costumery, storytelling accordion, bass, guitar, violin, live looping, improvisation, audience participation, and good ole fashion queer magic.

Emerging from the Olympia riot grrrl scene of the early 90s, NOMY LAMMhas brought her radically vulnerable message of body positivity to the whole wide world through a blend of zines, voice lessons, rock operas, performance art and collaboration. Currently she lives in San Francisco where she performs with Sins Invalid, (sinsinvalid.org) a bay area project that creates work around disability, sexuality, social justice and embodiment. Her current musical project, nomy lamm & The WHOLE WIDE WORLD is a flexible platform for collaboration with everyone and everything, and in the moment, with Melodie Younce, Erin Daly, DavEnd, and Caldwell Linker. (nomylamm.com)

DAVE ENDis a tender-hearted, genderqueer, costume designing, accordion wielding, songwriter and performer, based out of San Francisco. Currently, DavEnd is working on her 3rd studio album, “Likewize, I’m Sure” as well as finishing up a month long stint in Taylor Mac’s epic 5 hour play, ‘The Lily’s Revenge’. Ms End’s most recent performance project, Fabulous Artistic Guys Get Overtly Traumatized Sometimes: The Musical!, is the culmination of four years of nearly constant touring and performance, and brings together the worlds of music and radical performance art in a theatrical extravaganza, exploring the effects of heterosexism and street harassment on the development of queer identity.
(myspace.com/daveend, facebook.com/daveend

reading tour dates

2011-07-22T13:38:00.001-07:00

Upcoming Reading Tour:
August 11: Asheville NC, Malaprops Bookstore
September 23: Baltimore MD, Anarchist book fair; 6:00
September 24: Philadelpia PA, Wooden Shoe Bookstore; 7:00
September 25: NYC, Bluestockings Bookstore
September 26: Brooklyn, Bookthug Nation
September 27: North Hampton, MA, Food For Thought
September 28: may be somewhere in Vermont
September 29-30: Montreal
October 1-2:
October 3: Toronto
October 4: Pittsburgh

2011-07-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

New zines to doris distro
Encyclopedia of Doris: stories, essays, interviews
Issues 19-27 of Doris zine plus a bunch of stuff that was printed in other zines and a bunch of new writing! It will be coming out in the beginning of August!

The Papas
this zine by Spoonboy goes with the record of his band The Papas, but I got some zines separately because they are really good and important. It has a really good story/essay about cultural myths - the way masculinity is portraid and taught us; captialism, suicide, queerness and fighting back. also some ways to challenge patriarchy and reprints of really great articles "Masculinity and Homophobia, by Michael Kimmel; I Want a 24 Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape by Andrea Dworkin; and excerpts from The Will to Change by bell hooks

Eleven Months
written by Paul who wrote the Don't be A Dick zine, Eleven Months is a zine about their "experience teaching in the jail in downtown Seattle. It is a mix of experiences, dreams, analysis, rumors, reflections...an attempt to condense a magnificent, traumatic, grueling experience into something to share with others"

Without Words + Without Kneeling: the first six issues

Written by Tom of Rad Dad zine. This zine is a way to explore books about Anarchism from different viewpoints. I really love it. It's fiction - and the story is about an anarchist study group. Each charater is nicely developed and comes from different perspectives - all of which are really relatable. They discuss the books, but mostly the different ideas and viewpoints come out in their lives and realtionships with eachother. Hard to explain but cool. Books discussed include Crimethinc, Anarchism and it's Aspirations by Cindy Milstein, Pacifism as Pathology by Churchill, The Philosophy of Punk and more.

Virgin #1
This zine is about being a virgin, being ok with it, and how the rest of the world does not seem to think it's ok. It's about being queer, NOT asexual, crushes she's had, assumptions people make, and more.

Virgin #2
Contributor issue: stories and articles dealing with disability, asexuality, rape, the marketing of virginity, self-image, etc

When the Crash Meets Something Solid #008: Something Very Ugly

another installment of Gabrielles zine about time she spent in the sex industry in Minneapolis, her herion/drug addiction and recovery.

Preorder The Doris Encyclopedia!

2011-05-18T19:55:00.000-07:00

I only have 8 more pages to write for the Doris Encyclopedia, which is Doris 19-27 plus a bunch of new writing, interviews, and articles I wrote for MaximumRockandRpll and other zines! I'm taking pre-orders on a fundraising website called Kickstarter. click here to link
Spread the word!
thanks so much!!!
It's scheduled to be printed by the end of July!!!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/369768719/the-doris-encyclopedia

upcoming Snarlas shows

2011-05-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

We'll be playing in Columbus May 24, with Pink Houses and Lose the Tude, at the Villa Villa Kula house.
then on may 30 in Athens OH with Street Legal at Smiling Skull
June 4, Chattanooga TN at the Do You Hear We fest!

shows + more new zines!

2011-05-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

Snarlas will be playing May 24 in Columbus at the 15th street house, and May 30 in Athens OH at the Smiling Skull. Also, there's a Girls Rock Camp benefit show May 27 at Subama Women's Land, near Athens. It's women only trans inclusive. We'll be in Chattanooga TN for Do You Hear We Fest, June 3-5!

More new zines in the distro doris distro

!!!!!!!!!!Featured Music of the Season!!!!!!!!!!
Wild Miners CDR
singer/songwriter, sultry, beautiful singing. She's in a band called Octopus and Owl now, which should be on tour this summer, so check it out. click here
listen to wild miners

Shotgun Seamstress #5
A zine by and for black punks, queers, feminists, artists, musicians. Articles about bands Death and ESG, interviews with DJ Soul Sister, Aye Naico and Kicktease. plus a critique of corporate sponsored Afro-punk

Rad Girlz: my struggles with sexism, racism and violence
looking personally and critically about how sexism and violence have shaped her life. what it means that all white people are racist, what it mean politically and in her life. She talks about being queer, trying to reclaim her sexuality, dealing with eating disorders and cutting.

When the Crash Meets Something Solid #6: organs of voice and respiration
deals with time spent in the sex industry, drug addiction and recovery and being a mother. Poems and stories and journal entries.

The "T" Word: pass the mission
a zine made by Tranzmission about all kinds of stuff - How to be a good ally, language definitions, poems, personal stories, flyers from events, questioning DIY ethics in the Trans Liberation Movement, transexual prisoners, and reading recommendations. Procededs go to Transmission Prison Books Project

When the Crash Meets Something Solid #007: Widowmaker
continuation of the story of sexindustry and addiction. This one has a section on an abusive relationship she got out of in 2009.

more new zines

2011-04-11T07:44:00.000-07:00

There's a ton of new zines in the distro! doris distro
Fifteen

if you want a story that will make you suspicious of every teenager you meet!" This is the best written zine I've read in awhile. It's Mia's first zine. She wrote it when she was 15. I'm not sure if it's truth or fiction, but it's really good, disturbing, bitter. sex, drugs, getting locked up, the hypocrisy and blindness of adults, and of herself. Not for the light-of-heart or the easily offended.

I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself:a series of rants

another great zine by Mia (of Fifteen zine). This one is about being mixed race. Articles about hair, and the lack of representation in the media, dealing with racism and stereotypes, and more. Really good!

Brainscan #26:so what's the deal with you and Microcosm

If you've been wondering what the problems with Microcosm Publishing are, this zine lays out Joe Beils abusive behaviors, failed attempts to hold him accountable, and what can be done about it.

Cometbus #54: in China with Green Day

Aaron goes on tour with Green Day to China! Epic. More than a travel zine. The part I liked best was talking about how selling out is judged, but people just giving up their creative lives and doing nothing really worthwhile is not judged.

Adorn #21

very intense and brave zine about rape, abusive relationships and drug abuse, and becoming sober. There are sweet lists of good things in her life between the painful recollections and despair.

No Better Than Apples #7

really pretty zine, beautiful drawings and layout. I've been missing this kind of zine. a fragmented journey into her life that leaves you wanting to know more. love and tour and unresolved family demons. The helpless feeling of trying to take care of a sick mother. I know this feeling, and how alone I felt in it, how much of a secret it seemed. There is a story in here about visiting one of my all time favorite authors, Kate Millett! There's just so much in this thick little zine.

All Things Ordinary #4

A sweet zine, mostly of letters to people in his family telling them how much they mean to him. It's so nice. I wish we all did this kind of thing more often.

The Apple Pickers Union #2: Tow Chain: A monologue about my Experiences at Camp Trans 2010

Pissed off, funny and intense zine written by Curious Jane, who was an organizer of Camp Trans (outside the Michigans Women's Fest, which is/was a "women born women" space - I think they might have a don't ask don't tell policy now, I can't remember for sure.)
This zine kicks ass! It is partially about a situation that happened at the camp, where a tow truck driver threatened the Camp Trans people with a Tow Chain. I mean scary threatening, and the security at Mich.Fest defended the Tow Truck dude. This zine is a scathing critique of Patriarchy, Second Wave Feminism, and "community".

Doris 28! Out now!

2011-04-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

Doris 28 is finally out!!!!
you can order it though my website at doris distro
or by mail, 2.60 to
cindy crabb
pobox 29
Athens OH 45701

horray!!!

also, we're starting a Girls Rock Camp here in Ohio this summer!
check it out at
athensrockcamp

I'll be reading in Chicago March 25

2011-03-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

I'll be in Chicago for the Chicago zine fest - reading on Fri 25, doing a writing workshop Sat at 11 am, and tabeling. Come visit!

book reviews - activism

2011-03-16T12:26:00.000-07:00

A number of people recently have talked to me about feeling like my (and previous) generation hasn’t passed down the lessons we’ve learned from our own experience and activism. Here are few books that are full of great essays.

That’s Revolting! : Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

I’m reading this right now and it is so excellent! A really wide range of essays. Stories from the 60’s to today, all of them really relevant. This should be on everyone’s reading list. It’s a great introduction to radical queer politics, and a great reinvigorator for those of us who have gotten comfortable in our own lives and taken a break from dealing with the world. There’s so many great essays in here, it’s hard to pick out a few to highlight, but I did really appreciate the two on Gay Marriage, one by Carol Queen. “Certainly, oppression in any context is wrong. Naturally, queer folk are irritated when straight people get benefits denied to same-sex partners … pissed off queers making a point can cause the culture to shift.” She argues that instead of trying to “squeeze our asses onto the park bench of Normalcy” it would better serve the world and ourselves if we celebrated and fought for our wonderful diversity – for more choices rather than fewer.
Another great essay is a conversation between Marlon Bailey, Priya Kandaswamy, and Mattie Udora Richardson called Is Gay Marriage Racist. They discuss all kinds of questions people pose in support of gay marriage (questions I’ve had myself) and provide alternative ways of looking at these questions.
There are so many other topics covered in this book. Rural queer teens, activism from the 60’s and today. Performance Art, Protests, Pipe bombs, Sex, Films, Queer Radio, more and more and more.

Uses of a Whirlwind: Movements and Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States, edited by Team Colors Collective

I’ve heard the Team Colors has a pretty theoretical and hard to understand website, and this book does start out with a pretty inaccessible introduction and first essay, but after that, it is really useful. The essay A Look at Resistance to Interstate 69 by Earth First, discusses lessons learned about positive and problematic roles activists play when they come into a community they are not from to organize and do direct action – lessons I’ve seen activists have to learn over and over, so I’m grateful someone has written about it! Another essay I really liked was Harvesting Solidarity: Farmworkers, Allies and the Fight for Fair Food, which talks about a successful campaign for Florida tomato workers against Burger King and Taco Bell. It discusses tactics and how the coalition between farmworkers and students worked.
There’s an essay about queer activism (an autobiographical essay about why the Human Rights Campaign sucks and why pushing for hate crime legislation is not the answer), and an essay about current art activism. There’s a section on theoretical analysis. This book is a little disjointed and has more theory than I generally am drawn to, there are some essays that seemed like they were written for an audience that doesn't know much of anything about alternative culture, but I would hate to see it lost to the theory heads, because there is a lot of great info in here that I think would be particularly useful to younger or new activists. Also important for seasoned activists to get us thinking of how to think about and articulate our experiences and what can be learned from them.

From Act Up to the WTO
I must have leant this out, because I can’t find it. I’ve leant it out so much and everyone loves it. It is a history of Queer activism from mainly the 80’s and 90’s. So much of our history, even our current history, gets disappeared, and this book helps

summer tour

2011-03-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

My band Snarlas is going on tour this summer out West! Late June, early July. Does anyone by any chance want to lend us your van or car? We're coming in to the Bay Area Mon 27, and then going South and back up to the Bay July 2. so that's one part.
then up North, to Portland (July 6) and up and back to Portland (July 11).
so, it would be really dreamy if someone in the Bay Area would lend us a van or car for the Southern part (June 27-July2), and if someone in Portland could lend us one for the Northern part(July 6 - July 11).
I know it's probably a long shot, but I just thought I'd ask.
xx
cindy

new zines

2011-02-27T11:40:00.000-08:00

New zines! at click here for distro

Filling the Void: interviews about quitting drinking and using
Super inspiring! A great resource for people trying to quit. Not spiritual or straight-edge. 8 interviews with people who have quit drinking and/or using. Frank discussions and stories about the positive and negative roles drinking/using had in their lives, why they decided to quit, what they struggled with and how they managed to do it.
interviewees include Erick Lyle (Scam zine), Artnoose (Ker-bloom zine), Cindy (Doris zine), and John Geek (The Fleshies). Interviews conducted by and edited by Cindy and Caty Crabb

Protective Playing Cards
the most beautiful, coolest work of art I have ever seen. A real deck of cards, each card has a different amazingly beautiful drawing of protection.
you can play cards with them, keep them by your bed and look at one a day, page through them whenever you need to remember that you are not alone.

When the Crash Meets Something Solid #003
vinettes about addiction, Goddard College, pills to heroin, being in an abusive master/slave relationship with the owner of the massage place she worked - and getting away.

We Shut the City Down: Six former Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM) members reflect on the mass direct actions against the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.
On August 1, 2000, thousands of activists from the global justice movement took the streets of Philadelphia for direct action against police brutality and the prison industrial complex during the Republican National Convention. Hundreds were arrested, and many were held for several weeks. While helping to plan the protests, members of the Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM), a multiracial radical activist group based in the City University of New York (CUNY), argued for the focus on police and prisons, issues vital to communities of color in the U.S. The interviews in this zine, with 6 people of color who participated as SLAM members, were conducted in July 2010. They reflect a range of perspectives on direct action, strategy and tactics, racism in the movement, reaching beyond activist scenes, and direct democracy.

do you know any stores that carry zines?

2011-02-02T13:05:00.001-08:00

I'm working on doing more selling zines direct to stores, and since I haven't been traveling around much lately, I need your help! Let me know if you know of any stores that carry zines! I already sell directly to some - like Woodenshoe, Red Emmas, City Lights, Powells, Bound Together, Needles and Pens, Downtown Books and News, Quimbys... but I know there are a lot more stores out there that I don't know about.
Thanks!!

I won't be working with Microcosm anymore

2011-01-21T14:22:00.001-08:00

Here is Microcosm's statement and my response.

Microcosm's Statement:
It has been way too long since Cindy Crabb asked us to write a public statement regarding allegations of Joe Biel’s history of emotional abuse and manipulation. It is not because we have chosen to ignore this issue. On the contrary, we have spent many hours discussing this topic. But we are not writing today to provide excuses. We hope to provide some answers and to encourage more questions.

Cindy is right that collectives need to confront abuse in all its forms by members within their collectives, even if it is just a collectively-ran business, but especially when that business lays claim to radical politics. It is for this reason that we want to say that we do recognize Joe’s history of emotional abuse and manipulation. Not just with Alex, but within other relationships as well. We know that Joe has been involved in one failed mediation attempt with Alex. We also know that he was involved in a more recent process that fell apart (this was outlined in posts by Cindy and Alex). Unfortunately, the collective was made aware of this latter accountability process only shortly before it fell apart. We, the collective and Joe, have recently started working with a counselor who is helping us to reconcile many issues within the collective. We do not believe this is a replacement for a larger accountability process, but we do see it as an important first step for our involvement and for the betterment of Microcosm as a collectively-ran company.

We recognize and agree with the statement put out by the Athens Support Network, who mediated the last accountability process.

“Joe is in therapy, and we feel that he is making progress through therapy. He has identified a large number of behavior issues and has done work and continues to do work to change them. He believes that he honors Alex’s experience. We, however, feel that he still has extreme problems with control, manipulation, defensiveness, and portraying himself as the victim.”
We have noticed some positive improvements in Joe’s behavior, but he does have a long way to go. We do believe that he can work through this and therefore choose, at this time, to continue working with him. We welcome suggestions on how we, the collective, can better facilitate this process. In the meantime, we will continue to work through this and figure things out as we go.

Cindy also pointed out that she would like more transparency about how things are run at microcosm. For that reason, we will soon be releasing some information on our website about how we run things. We honestly want to be a more transparent organization (which is why we’ve started posting annual financial statements). Over the past year, we have begun to change and implement a lot of new policies to help spread power among all of the collective members. We are excited about these changes and equally excited to share them with you.

Alex was right in that we need to hear from you. We know that Microcosm could be better and we want it to be so. For that reason, we need to know what it is that you think we need to fix. We’ve already heard some great things and we’ve worked to improve those. We’ll share more about that later, though. We want the focus to stay where Cindy and others have asked us to focus it for now - on Joe’s accountability.

Thank you Cindy, Alex, Ciara, and everyone who has put pressure on us to make change. It is a wonderful example of collective action. And we hope it proves that while we may be relatively large in the zine world, we are still just a small group of people who still love the community we are a part of and hope to make it a better place.

With sincerity and humility,
The Microcosm Collective

In response to Microcosms statement about Joes manipulative and abusive behavior.

This statement is to let it be known that despite Microcosms recent public statement finally acknowledging Joe Biel’s abusive and manipulative behavior, I will not be distributing Doris though Microcosm any longer. They published Doris 23, the Doris Anthology, the Support zine and Learning Good Consent, so I don’t have control of those publications.

In July, 2010, I asked Microcosm to write a statement, or have each collective member contact me with a personal statement, as a precondition to my continuing to work with them. I was following my sincere belief that organizations should have a chance to admit to the abusive behaviors of members, and that as long as they show a commitment to change, they should not necessarily be shunned. Below is part of the statement I made.

I believe that collectives, even when they are just collective businesses, are responsible for confronting issues of patriarchy (and other forms of domination) within their collectives, and working on change and transparency. I believe that Joe's behavior stems from patriarchy … the communication/manipulation models he uses are … patriarchtical.
In order to feel comfortable continuing to be published by Microcosm, I would need to know either from each collective member or from the collective as a whole (with a minority dissenting opinion) that they don't think Alex was crazy or that the attempts to deal with the situation are a witch-hunt. I would need to know from each member, or the collective as a whole (with a minority dissenting opinion,) that the collective recognizes that Joe still has issues with control and manipulation… I need to feel like the collective takes this seriously and does not put the burden of instigating change on the survivor/s, or on people negatively affected by Joe's behavior.

I do believe there are good people who work at Microcosm. I don’t want those people to suffer because of Joe’s behavior. I wanted to give the workers at Microcosm a chance to show their commitment to confronting Joe’s manipulative behavior, and a chance to make a strong stance against abuse. The statement that was recently released by Microcosm is too little, too late. I can’t believe it took 6 months to write a statement that could easily be summed up as “we agree with the statement made by the Athens Support Network.” Microcosm’s statement gives the impression that Joe has made more changes than he has.

I was hopeful that Microcosm might be able to take a strong stand against abuse. I feel like they failed. If this statement had come out immediately, and they had followed up with concrete examples of change months later, that would have been great. If they had waited six months and come up with a statement that firmly placed the responsibility of change on Joe’s feet, discussed concrete changes the collective was making to deal with his abusive behavior, and took a strong stand against abuse, that would have been great. This statement is very weak, particularly considering that Joe’s abuse has been known for years.

There have also been a number of incidents and issues that have come up since I made my request for a public statement that have contributed to my decision to not work with Microcosm anymore:

- I had asked that a public statement be made or that each collective member contact me with a statement about their beliefs. I received two statements, both of which referred to problems between Joe and Alex; neither called it abuse.

- Joe wrote a statement about his behavior, which I found extremely disturbing. Among other problems, it was very minimizing of Alex’s experiences of abuse, and minimizing of the extent of his current manipulative behavioral problems.

- I had a number of business discussions with people at Microcosm, where the communication was unclear and I felt like I was being manipulated.

- I was told by someone at Microcosm that they were unclear what exactly Microcosm would need to do for me to continue working with them. This was months after I had made these conditions known. Often, in accountability situations, the perpetrator and the people who benefit from continued friendship/relationship with the perpetrator want to know exactly what needs to be done to fix it. This need for an exact recipe puts the burden back on the survivor/people who support the survivor.

All of these things have added to my feeling that the collective is not taking Joe’s abusive patterns seriously.

I would like to take this chance to clear up some misconceptions about the accountability process I was involved in with Joe:

In late 2009, Joe told me that he had been in intensive therapy, had changed, and had no way of clearing his name. I helped set up an accountability team that was designed to confirm that Joe had recognized and changed his behavior; to help him deal with rumors, and to help him make amends. It was not designed to be a full accountability process.

Early on, it became clear that Joe still had very abusive/manipulative behaviors and that he was unwilling to own up to most of it. Joe had lied about the level of changes he had made. Because of this, the accountability process was disbanded.

I am disgusted by Joe’s abuse of his former partner, disgusted by his continuing manipulative behavior. I do not think he has even begun to make the kinds of fundamental changes necessary. I take abuse very seriously and while I think there are some people in Microcosm who are committed to working for a world without abuse, I also think there is complicity within the organization. I have been disturbed by my recent interactions with people working at Microcosm. I am glad they made a public statement, and that they have a counselor helping them deal with internal issues but am skeptical about their priorities, since they have not posted their public statement on their website. I feel mistrustful of the organization. I have a hard time not thinking that most people just signed on to the statement, hoping to save their pants. I understand that they have been working to be more transparent. I hope that they are able to change. I, however, will not be working with Microcosm any longer.

new zines in the distro! and music!

2011-01-17T07:47:00.000-08:00

at my distro click here for distro

the ovens. CDR
Featured band of the season! The Ovens! Two peice feminist band from Chicago! Check it out by clicking here!listen to This Disaster Was Brought To You By Heterosexuality

Keep Track: Pocket Calender
This is my little calender and pocket organizer! Cute drawings! Fits in your pocket! There are two pages for each month, with four blank pages with little drawings for taking notes and making lists.
The calender part has blank spots for you to fill in the dates, so that you can start at any time, but if you want me to fill it in, I will.

When the Crash Meets Something Solid Issue #002: Hewers of Water
stories, essays, and poetry about drug addiction; sex work - which she did at first by choice, and then how it got twisted; abuse, and survival
powerful and good

The Worst: A Compilation Zine on Grief and Loss: Issue 2
A new issue of this beautiful zine, thick and full of stories and articles about grief and dealing with death.
I read it a month ago, and I can't remember for sure, but it seemed like this one had more stories from people who were a little older and had more time/distance from the deaths they were writing about, where as the first issue seemed more immediate. Both are so useful! Both have a wide variety of stories.

Truckface #14
Excellent zine! about her second year of teaching high-school. very funny, extremely tragic, inspiring, depressing, politics, comics, everything you could ask for. I love this zine!
It also has stories about life outside of school - starting a feminist band (the Ovens), bad roommates, and more!
Every new teacher and everyone thinking of becoming a teacher should read this, plus everyone else should too!

Truckface #13
Thick little zine about LB's first (hellish) year of teaching highschool. In which she gets named "The Nose" by her students. Deals with a class of 8 bad apples - and how to teach, how to stay sane. Almost decided to not continue teaching. Deals with the religious right protesting at the school (for having a Gay-Straight Alliance), this zine is great and has a million funny/sad stories.
I wish all my friends who were going into their first year of teaching could read this zine! and everyone else too!

Truckface #12
"How do you become an authority figure when you yourself are anti-authoritarian? Questions that should have been asked prior to enrolling in teaching school."

student teaching in Chicago - dealing with bitter, assimilationist teachers; desperation and violence among students (24 students murdered this school year... and school authorities decided that tucking in shirts is the solution); dancing in class with the students, students talking about racism and discrimination, immigration, bravery.

When Lanugage Runs Dry #3:A Zine for People with Chronic Pain and Their Allies
another issue of this great zine. Issue #3 has a beautifully written peice about brain injury; an article about parenting with chronic pain; a comic/theory about Fibromyalgia and invisible illness; a conversation/interview between a step-mother and daughtor about what it was like to have a step-mother who was experiencing chronic pain; and an article about the workbook Living Beyond Your Pain: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Ease Chronic Pain

me and my horses

2010-12-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

Sassy and Peanut

new zines to the cataloge

2010-11-12T08:46:00.000-08:00

new zines to my distro!

Keep Track: Pocket Calender
This is my little calender. It should be out by Dec 15! Fits in your pocket! You write in the dates. There are two pages for each month, then four pages for notes between months. Perfect for if the Slingshot calender has too much space for you.

All I Want is Everything #1
Well written, articulate personal/feminist zine. The first article is about getting out of a long-term abusive relationship. There are articles about victim blaming, refusing to live in the past, pop culture, and much more. It's really good!

Love Letters to Monsters #3 / Alabama Grrrl #9 split
I haven't even finished this yet, but it is my favorite loveletters zine so far, and I'm so excited about Alabama Grrrl too!
Ciara's side is more memoir like than usual, still political, but not as much indignation. The first story is partially about her mom. I have a number of friends who's mom's are homeless or close to homeless, kind of crazy or really crazy, and there is something so confusing about mothers needing care, and when to draw the line. I struggled with it a lot with my mom, and felt so alone. I am always really grateful when people get the courage to write about their complicated relationships like this.
She writes about community and how overused that word is, and wanting laughter. writing, mental and physical health, running a distro. It's like a long story. It's good.

Alabama Grrrl is about being queer and punk in the late 90's in Pittsburgh, "Things I wished I would've known before going to grad school," a love-letter breakup letter to the violent/misogynistic scene that is happening in her town, hoping it will energize new kids to create a safer place.

Cometbus #51 The Lonliness of the Electric Menorah
A story about two bookstores in Berkeley that were started in the underground in the 60's, and we were forever trying to get our zines into. Why didn't they support us? It was strange.
This zine is almost like a fable, and is about a lot more than just these two bookstores. It's about how partnerships come together and how they get subverted. Based on long interviews with a zillion people.

Cometbus #52 The Spirit of St Louis
a story of a group of punks, how they try to make or unmake a life and scene. It's second title is "How to Break Your Own Heart, a tragedy in 24 parts.

Kerbloom 85These little pretty zines have been coming out forever, every two months. They are done on letterpress, which is the kind of printing press where you have to put each letter in one at a time.
This is my favorite one in awhile. "I would say that each of us is a star, that we form constellations, and that these constellations change."

call for submissions

2010-11-12T08:42:00.000-08:00

Two call for submissions: one about being a survivor - and how did you survive
and one about Gender
see links and descriptions below.

dear sister anthology

Many survivors already know this: that after you are raped, you are never the same person again. More specifically, someone has died and new person is born. And like a newborn, the new person must learn first how to survive and then eventually, live.

The five stages of grief is a psychological theory. It outlines and supposes five stages of emotional battle the can occurs in the aftermath of loss.

The first stage is denial.

Survivors may tell themselves it never happened. It wasn’t rape. The person who did this is my friend, my boyfriend, girlfriend, relative, lover, spouse, neighbor. It wasn’t rape.

The second stage is anger.

Survivors can live in a room full of anger, resentment, bitterness, self-blame and self-loathing for weeks, months, sometimes years. They have recognized what has happened and the emotions are often overwhelming.

Bargaining is the third stage.

Bargaining is giving ourselves false hope because we cannot deal with our reality. We look to recover what was lost or taken. We lost our sense of wholeness and cannot deal with our brokenness, so we jump into a relationship, alcohol, drugs, work, sex…believing that if we do something, we will get what we once had. Bargaining looks different for everyone, but regardless of what the behavior is, the hope is trying to get back what cannot be recovered.

Fourth stage is depression

Nearly every survivor will combat depression in some form. Disinterest in previously enjoyed activities, frequent crying spells, trouble sleeping, sleeping too much, changes in appetite. There are numerous symptoms of depression and most survivors will describe it in two words: dark numbness.

The fifth stage is acceptance.

Acceptance doesn’t mean that we’re happy or that we don’t revisit the other stages from time to time. Acceptance means acknowledging that something has lost and we are not the same person as before. A new way of living must be learned and while the road is long, a first step was taken.

As a survivor, do you remember a certain stage you may have experienced? Do you remember moving through that part of your life? What got you through? When did you turn the corner? Who helped you?

In your letter, remember that the survivor is in a raw place, perhaps not even certain of what just happened. Focus not on the darkness, but what brought you to the next place, on what acceptance looked like for you. What brought you into the light?

call for submissions for Alex zine.
alex zine

why gender, and what is alex looking for? gender is something everybody has and few understand, despite the volumes written on the subject already. alex is looking for personal essays, poems, or other forms of expression that get at what gender means to YOU and how do you LIVE gender. topics could be about anything, and might gesture at: what is gender? how does it affect you? do you feel like you have a gender? how do you want others to see you and how do you see yourself? do your thoughts on your own gender shift? what is getting dressed like? what is it like to walk around as you? how do your political ideas about gender enter your daily life (or do they)? what else springs to mind when you think about the topic? tell some stories. this is a good chance to write something a “normal” editor wouldn’t take on, something you’re still sorting out. this is a great chance to write about something that scares you.

teaching workshop at Queer Influx, columbus ohio

2010-11-05T13:33:00.000-07:00

I'll be teaching a workshop Nov. 13 at the Queer Influx conference in Columbus!
Check it out at http://queerinflux.wordpress.com/convergence-schedule/

new books + zines for the distro!

2010-09-04T15:47:00.001-07:00

I have a bunch of new zines and some new books for the distro! at riot grrrr distro
Including SCAM! The First 4 Issues!

Also, I just looked at Mimi Distro, and it is so great! Check it out at mimizinedistro.wordpress.com

Polyamory and Patriarchy Zine Questionnaire

2010-08-30T06:46:00.000-07:00

This is a zine an amazing aquaintance of mine is putting together.
Please send your stories to: polypatriarchyzine@gmail.com, or mail them to 4951 Catharine St., Philadelphia, PA 19143.

Polyamory and Patriarchy Zine Questionnaire

These questions are for a zine I’m writing about polyamory and patriarchy. So often, people feel either that polyamory is the only revolutionary way to be intimate, or the worst way. I’d like to hear what you’ve learned from polyamory – ways it felt liberatory, and ways it may have felt like familiar oppressive gender roles dressed up in revolutionary language. My agenda isn’t to discredit polyamory, but to identify how much we have to learn about truly liberatory relationships.
These questions are fairly personal and ask you to revisit some painful memories, so please take your time, answer only what you feel comfortable answering, and let me know how you want your anonymity protected. Please use pseudonyms! Do give me contact info, though, if you want to review how I use your material before the zine is published.

1. Let’s start with gender. What gender roles did you learn from your family of origin? From the media? From your chosen community? How do you express gender now – is it different than how you were socialized to express gender?

2. What were your reasons for first trying polyamory? Was it your idea or a partner’s? Did you have any models in your community for successful polyamorous relationships?

3. What was the most empowering experience you’ve had in polyamory?

4. What was the hardest situation to handle in a polyamorous relationship? Looking back, what would you have done differently, if anything?

5. What kinds of insecurities did polyamory raise? Did they concern your gender or body image? How did you handle these insecurities?

6. How have you felt most empowered in polyamory? How has it felt expansive, liberatory, or healing?

7. Do you have a different kind of intimacy with lovers than with friends? Who are you more likely to turn to for emotional support?

8. How do your expectations change based on what kind of relationship you’re in? Do you have different standards of behavior for partners and lovers?

9. Has polyamory ever made you feel silenced, or unable to ask for what you needed?
What have your relationships with your lover’s other lovers been like? How have you handled feelings of jealousy and competition? How have you handled your partner’s jealousy?

10. Tell me a little about your best relationship, polyamorous or otherwise, and what made it work so well.

11. Today, what is your ideal relationship?

12. Do you want to see the zine before it’s published? Do you want a copy mailed to you? If so, let me know how to reach you.

Please send your stories to: polypatriarchyzine@gmail.com, or mail them to 4951 Catharine St., Philadelphia, PA 19143.

I also welcome your analysis and thoughts about sexual politics, polyamory, and this project – thanks!

community accountability zine call for submissions

2010-08-23T17:16:00.000-07:00

I am so glad someone is doing this zine! I have been trying to find time to try and put together this exact thing!
Please submit!!!
It's Down to This

For info and submissions contact: responsezine@gmail.com

“It’s Down to This” is a new zine compilation that aims to give space to step back, take a deep breath and reflect on where we’re at.

Reflecting on our experiences with community accountability processes, survivor support, or general efforts to cultivate community response to sexual violence- this is a space to talk about our experiences with this work, what we have learned, where we want to go from here, what we feel, what we want others to be able to hear, see, think about, engage with.

It is an attempt to further give voice to our efforts and experiences in doing this work, to give space and voice to silence. To know and hear how we have survived in this work, how we have sustained this work, or why we burned out. To further document our attempts at figuring out what community accountability looks like, or what it even is. To be able to reflect and grow from our mistakes and epiphanies.

SEEKING: stories, essays, interviews, comics, artwork and thoughts reflecting on working around accountability and community response to sexual violence:

What has it looked like? What has it entailed? What could it look like? Who does it involve? In what ways? How is a community responsible? How is a community involved? What can an accountability process look like? What has it looked like? What works? What doesn’t? What were the fuck-ups, the successes?

*These questions are asked with the assumption that confidentiality will be respected and that stories will not be shared if they are not yours to share.

*The word ‘community’ is used with the awareness that it is often used problematically.

Looking for submissions that:

- explore the importance of accountability and support work as an act of community building and collective liberation, that express the importance of this work within social justice movements.

-reflect on the support, empowerment, recovery and growth that have come out of this work

-reflect on the pain, trauma and frustration of this work or which is inherent in this work.

-develop ideas and methods of sustainability around this work

-look at the social and political contexts in which community accountability and response to sexual violence and partner abuse grows and exists.

-share our stories

Anonymity and confidentiality will be respected.

DEADLINE: October 22nd, 2010

For info and submissions contact: responsezine@gmail.com

Feel free to send in ideas/proposals and ask for feedback!

upcoming Snarlas shows

2010-08-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

Here's where we're playing....
Aug. 19 Pittsburgh with Surrender. at Zach's house. I'm not sure of the address
Aug 20 (maybe)Athens OH 35 Brown St
Sept 16 Baria KY, maybe
Sept 19 Ida work party, Tennesse (they need more people to come to this work party. check it out at www.workhardstayhard.com
Sept 21 Chatanooga - probably at Sluggos
Sept 23 Asheville NC, Buccannen St house (I don't know how to spell it)

call for submissions - Substance: on addiction and recovery

2010-08-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS ON ADDICTION AND RECOVERY

Substance: On Addiction and Recovery is a collection of peoples’ experiences with addiction and recovery in radical and/or marginalized communities. Not just a text to break the silence, Substance is an opportunity for those affected by substance abuse to make meaning of our lives and create opportunities for lasting social change. Substance: On Addiction and Recovery will be a book that transcends the mainstream discourse regarding addiction and recovery and forges new pathways towards healing and the reclamation of our lives.

I am open to essays, poetry, personal narratives, photography, art, comics, collage, and more.

Please be in touch with questions and submission ideas: substancebook at gmail dot com!

Potential topics:
• personal narratives of addiction and/or recovery • support groups • radical sobriety • harm reduction • silence and stigma • withdrawal and detoxification • the intersections of race/class/sexual orientation/gender identity/disability status and addiction • creating and sustaining community support networks • how addiction intersects with activism, sexuality, health, sexual and intimate partner violence, mental illness, privilege, oppression, identity, capitalism, the state, work, and
creativity • current or historic examples of community-based groups that focus on the politics of addiction or support of community members • healing from addiction • self-medication • overdose and death • incarceration and criminalization •

In addition to pieces by individuals, I'd like to include a few pieces about the work that community-based groups have done to address the politics of addiction and recovery and to support those dealing with substance abuse. If you are a member of such a group, please feel free to write.

THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS MARCH 7, 2011

Additionally, if you know anyone who would like to donate funds of any amount to support the printing of this book, please have them contact substancebook at gmail dot com!

Please forward this message on, and spread the word!

clarification

2010-07-28T11:47:00.001-07:00

I just want to make a clarification about something I wrote in my letter to Microcosm and the blog about it. In it, I talked about writing a blog awhile ago and then removing it the next day because I didn't know where the information came from. I want to clarify and say that I trusted the person who gave me the information, and I removed the blog because I wanted to do more research on my own so that I would be able to discuss it from a place of personal knowledge rather than second hand. I do believe that second hand information is extremely valid, and not everyone can or should feel like they have to do their own research into a situation to stand up against it. I feel like people feeling like they have to do their own research is part of what perpetuates the whole dynamic where survivors are always having to defend themselves and perpetrators are always getting the benefit of the doubt.
Because I have a place of power within our community, I wanted to make sure I felt well versed in the situation before making a public statement about it.

In my letter to Microcosm, I referred to Ciara's blog as inflamatory, which I really regret. I think inflaming people is essential and brave, and I think I meant it in that framework, but obviously, I should have thought deeper, because most people think of inflamitory as a bad word. Continuing to stand up against abuse when people all around you are ignoring it is frustrating and sickening, and I am very proud of and suppport the work Ciara has done. I apologize for any misunderstanding or backlash my words have caused.

Microcosm

2010-07-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

This is about Joe Biel and Microcosm.
A number of years ago I read Alex's zine Brainscan 21. Alex was Joe's long-term partner and wife and worked with Microcosm. It was about how she came to realize, with the help of her therapist, that he was emotionally abusive and manipulative in their relationship and business. It wasn't a big surprise to me, because when I had seen them together, they really reminded me of me and my former emotionally abusive partner. After I read the zine, I wrote to Alex and asked if she thought I should remove my stuff from Microcosm, and she said she didn't really think I should have to do that. In retrospect, I wish I had.

I believed Alex's zine. I wanted to believe that Joe might change, or that his behavior could possibly be situational and not show up as abusive in other relationships. I also said to myself "all publishers and record store guys are scumbags." I saw that Microcosm had more members than in the past, and was being collectively run, and I hoped that this meant Joe was stepping aside and giving up power in order to deal with his control issues. I had heard he was in therapy.

The truth was, I benefited from being published and distributed by Microcosm. I was overwhelmed by dealing with abuse in my immediate community, and didn't want to look too closely at my complacency regarding Microcosm.

Early this year, I got involved in trying to set up an accountabiliy process for Joe. He had said that he had done all that was requested of him and that he didn't know how to stop rumors or how to communicate with Alex that he had changed, since she didn't want contact.

Attached below is the final statement of the attempted accountability process.

I am trying to figure out what to do about Microcosm and distributing my zines with them. Below the statement from the accountability process is a letter I wrote to Microcosm a few weeks ago.

Microcosm is collectively run by like 8 people or something, and Joe does not have final say in things, however, as I say in my letter, I think collectives have to stand up and confront abuse by members within their collectives. Microcosm as a collective, does not do this.

I don't want people within the Microcosm collective who do believe Alex, and who know that Joe does have abusive and manipulative behaviors, to suffer, however, I can no longer support a collective that will not stand up against abuse.

I won't be publishing my next book with Microcosm. I am going to give them until the end of the year to come up with a collective statement confronting/admitting Joe's abuse and manipulation, and/or for Joe to legally remove himself from the collective. If by the end of the year, this isn't done, I will be removing my zines from Microcosm. I will also be reprinting Support and Learning Good Consent on my own.

Statement from the Athens Support Network:

In January, 2010, we convened to help with the accountability process of Joe Biel. We had been given the understanding, from Joe, that he was in therapy, had met Alex's demands, and didn't know how to proceed since she did not want contact. We confirmed that Joe had met most or all of Alex's logistical/legal demands, but in order to confirm whether or not he had identified and changed his behavior, we set about some written excercises. Our process was straightforward and formal, working on identifying behavior and making amends. Joe cooperated with the "identifying behavior" exercises - vacilating between what we perceived as willingness and defensiveness. We did not make it past the "identifying behavior" section of the process, as it became clear that a much deeper conversation/process needed to happen and we were unable to commit to the time and energy it would take. We think that if another process was to take place, it would need to be face to face and would need to have people in his immediate community actively involved. We believe that these people would need to have professional training and experience, and have a large amount of time to commit to the process. We do not believe it is the community's responsibility to sacrifice themselves for this. We do think that it is the responsibility of Joe's friends and other people who benefit from acquaintance with Joe to recognize that the accusations concerning his abusive behavior are valid, that he still has problems with control and manipulation that he is working on, and to point out to him when he is behaving in these manners, even if it is not negatively affecting them. We also belive it is up to Joe to actively encourage and support this type of dialogue with his friends, co-workers and acquaintances.
Joe is in therapy, and we feel that he is making progress through therapy. He has identifed a large number of behavior issues and has done work and continues to do work to change them. He believes that he honors Alex's experience. We, however, feel that he still has extreme problems with control, manipulation, defensiveness, and portraing himself as the victim. We feel that he often minimizes and belittles Alex's experience, and sometimes seeks to redefine it as communication problems rather than emotional abuse (see blog response post, Feb 5). In Brainscan, Alex's counselor identifed Joe as "using classic examples of distraction while arguing like some sort of sleight of hand trick with words". We also noticed this in our working with him.
Joe has a number of counter-charges against Alex. While we were unable to explore all these charges, they are consistent with the actions of someone trying to regain power when their power has been taken away from them due to emotional abuse.
We do believe Joe is working to understand and change his behaviors. We do not believe this gives him a clean slate.

letter I sent to Microcosm before I got the statement from the accountability team
Dear Microcosm,
I'm sorry about the confusing request for Joe to change the legal ownership to the collective. I guess I was just looking for a simple answer to a complicated question.
I believe that Joe was emotionally abusive controling and manipulative to Alex. I also believe that he still has these problems, even if they do not show up in his current intimate relationship. I believe that he is working on these issues in therapy. I also believe that he doesn't take as much responsibility as I think he should.
I beleive that collectives, even when they are just collective businesses, are responsible for confronting issues of patriarchy (and other forms of domination) within their collectives, and working on change and transparency with their members. I believe that Joe's behavior stems from patriarchy, even if he is not really sexist - the communication/manipulation models he uses are, in my view, patriarchtical.
In order to feel comfortable continuing to be published by Microcosm, I would need to know either from each collective member or from the collective as a whole (with a minority disenting opinion) that they don't think Alex was crazy or that the attempts to deal with the situation are a witchhunt. I would need to know from each member, or the collective as a whole (with a minority disenting opinion) that the collective recognizes that Joe still has issues with control and manipulation.
I would need to understand better what the collective structure is - like who has the ability to hire and fire.
I would like it if the collective members got involved in a new accountability process or some kind of process where people who are close to Joe can point out, in a constructive way, where they see these issues arising.
I need to feel like the collective takes this seriously and does not put the burden of instigating change on the survivor/s, or on people negatively affected by Joe's behavior.

For the most part, I enjoyed working with Joe at Microcosm. When Brainscan came out, I wanted to ignore it because I liked working with Microcosm. I know that sometimes a person can be abusive in a relationship, and the same behavior can be ok in another relationship, and I just wanted to hope for the best. However, I did have an incident with Joe, back then, that made me doubt that it was an isolated problem. I can't remember the exact specifics, but I think I had been to Portland and SF and had been around to stores, none of which had Doris stuff, so I sold it to them. I think it was right before the SF zine fest, and when Joe went to the Bay Area and found my zines/books in the stores, he got upset (I'm not sure if that's exactly when it was, that's just my vague memory). I do remember clearly having a tense phone conversation, where I felt like he was extremely defensive, and although he probably wasn't actually raising his voice, it felt like he was yelling at me. We made an agreement about where I could/could not sell books, and I decided to never talk to him on the phone again if I had a potentially conflicting issue.

As I'm sure you all probably know, a number of months ago, I got involved in an accountabiliy process with Joe. I'd like you to know how that came about.
Two people had contacted me, expressing concerns over Joe's past behavior. One of these emails had been from someone who was part of an organizaiton that was about to make a public statement about Joe's behavior. I read a blog by Ciara that was very inflamitory. I wrote a blog about how upset I was that Joe was continuing this behavior, then the next morning removed the blog because I realized I didn't know exactly where Ciara had gotten her info. Joe wrote to me and said he was sad about my blog, he explained that he'd been in therapy, that he took responsibility for his actions, and that he didn't know how to resolve things with Alex since there was no accoutability process that could facilitate closure.
I felt that it was important to get an accountability process going imediately. I tried to find people in Portland to do it, and couldn't. I offered to help head of a new accountability process. We were working on the assumption that the behaviors were in the past and resolution would be basic communicating with all parties involved. I know there were problems with the communication between the accountability people and Microcosm, and I apologize.

Early in the accountability process, I sent Joe a personal statement - it was a very personal account of my own experience with an abusive/controling relationship and how I didn't want my experience to color the accountability process, but would like it if my experience could lend understanding, it ended like this:This statement doesn't need a response (and please don't respond telling me how my experience is different from what you are being held accountable for. I know that), but if you have questions that are in a spirit of deeper understanding, feel free to ask.
Joe didn't notice this part of the statement. He went though my statement, adding in where he felt like it was or wasn't what his experience was, and also talking about his own understanding of abuse, with a link to an article he thought I should read, and he wrote about his own experiences in general.

Another instance of disregarding boundries/not noticing boundries happened when we were discussing the cover for the Doris Anthology - he had forwarded me the internal discussion of what people did/didn't like about the cover. I asked him not to forward the internal discussion, because it sucked to have to read everyone not liking something, and would be nicer if he could just sum it up. He said since everyone thought different things, he didn't have any other way to do it except to forward me the whole dialogue.
It is funny because when someone else in the collective said they heard I was having problems with something about it, I explained it to them, and they said they would never send a whole dialoge like that.
This wasn't the hugest deal in the world at all, but is just a continuation and example of how these ignoring/not seeing personal boundrys are still a problem.

I believe that Joe is capable of addressing these issues and changing his behavior. I believe that it is going to take the work of people around him bringing to attention the small and large examples of these behaviors, as well as Joe's willingness to be open to criticism, constructive or angry.

I don't have any smooth conclusion for this. If the collective could let me know how/if they want to address these issues and who will be the point person for talking with me about it, I would appreciate it.
thanks
cindy

new zines to distro

2010-06-04T16:44:00.000-07:00

ok! New Zines to Riot Grrr Distro!

Vag
I think this zine would have made me less scared to travel, back when I was scared of the unknown. I wish there were more travel zines by girls and queers and trannies. In this one, Biz travels though 40 states. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends or their band. There are small sweet stories of places and people and the things that make life.
2.50 u.s. 3.50 intl

Embarrazine! and When We Were Young
comics by my friends Max Wheeler and Chris Monday. Max's is about his dad's trip to Mexico in 1976, Chris's is about causing harmless trouble and having fun
very sweet comics. Max says "it's people's history!
2.60 u.s. 3.60 intl

Towards a Less Fucked Up World: Sobriety and Anarchist Struggle
1.50 u.s. 2.50 intl

Negrita #2
My friend Gloria wrote this zine a long time ago and it is still kick-ass. It has stories about hitchiking, about how many dudes interrupt and talk over and ignore women and what you can do to change it, how important it is to acknowledge racism and some fucked up things people have said to her, a story about girl competition, body image, fasting, and more. All very funny and serious.
1.50 u.s. 2.50 intl

Rad Dad 17
3.75 u.s. 4.30 intl

Ker-bloom! 83
Artnoose and 5 friends enroll in a med study for $1,000 they are infected with a cold virus and stay for a week in a hotel where doctors study their reactions.
2.00 u.s., 3.00 intl

2010-04-29T16:35:00.000-07:00

new zines for distro

2010-02-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

new zines to the distro at riotgrrrdistro

dad.

Timothy wrote this zine four years after his dad died of cancer. He wrote about his dad every day for a month, and this zine is selections from that writing. His dad was from S.Africa and had been a white, anti-apartied activist before moving to the u.s.
So there are parts about that and part about Timothy wondering what it would have been like to come out to his dad as being trans. Wishes and regrets and so much more.

I wish I had read this zine after my mom died, because it would have helped me to understand what it might be like four years later.

2.40 u.s., 3.40 intl

Brainscan 19

from being the girl scribbling in her notebook to the girl runnning around getting stuff done - helping to organize the Portland Zine Symposium, the weird thing about meeting and making friends with people who's zines you've read, and the ways we represent ourselves. Important tips and ideas that came out of a mental helath workshop she went to. Doing a zine workshop for highschoolers and at the Portland Rock and Roll camp for girls, and how great the camp was.

2.75 u.s., 3.60 intl

Brainscan 20

Utah stories: about home can be like memories threatening to consume you. but "I am not afraid of your ghosts. I am not afraid of who I used to be."
Alex has a beautiful way of writing these stories - coffee shop crushes, rediculous drinking games, unrequited love, friendship, friendship break up, optimism and small adventures.

2.75 u.s., 3.60 intl

Brainscan 22: a practical body modification

This issue is all about IUD's. some factual information and then her detailed story about what it was like to get one. I think it would be really useful for anyone considering getting an IUD, and also it's just good to hear about what it is like going to the gynecologist office, because it's something that doesn't get talked about much.

2.75 u.s., 3.60 intl

Iran: 100 Years of Modern Iran (1891-1992)
like all the Simple History zines, this is a great introduction to the history of Iran, and makes further study seem possible.

2.75 u.s. 3.60 intl

Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2:DIY Resource for zines and zine culture

A little book that's about making zines, with tips about writing and editing, layout, copyright, photocopiers, binding, block printing, paper making, mail art and a zillion other things.

7.00 u.s., 10.00 intl

new zines for distro

2010-02-21T17:10:00.000-08:00

New zines to the distro at riot grrrr distro

Toothworm #4: I, Turdshiner
My favorite zine I've seen in awhile. Disturbing and beautiful, small stories about injuries on the inside and out "Band-Aids won't stick to an ugly mouth of exposed tissue. Crisis is a mountain or a pyramid, do what you got to."
abuse and "is coping really a viable option". sex and puking and tour the lies we uphold. priveledge and queerness and what it looks like to watch her father sick from addiction and withdrawing. "Right and wrong, fear and love, beauty and ugly, safety and threat, care and coercion. All the hate that brought me here.
I read this zine and then put it down and then read it again, trying to get all the essence of it.
2.75 us, 3.60 intl

I'm Queer As Fuck and I'm Going to Carve a Space in Your Brain for Trannies
Two articles that are introducing trans issues, and talking about ways to be a trans ally.
One article is about pronouns, and the other is called Respect/Etiquette/Support, and discusses issues like Outing, Self-Education, Passing, Respecting Self-Identification, etc.

I forgot which zines I took this articles from, which is pretty inexcusable, but true.

.90 us and .90 intl if ordered with other zines

Tuff Town #2
pocket sized with pretty printed cover, hand sewn binding and full of care. Sweet stories like trying to take city busses from Goleta to LA and getting stranded we decided this was how we would tell if we could be friends with people or not;
whether or not they thought this was stupid. A small, two girl bike trip along the ocean and it feels like the ocean, windswept with strange characters. She talks about not always talking about real tings because how can you? the horror of screaming alcohoic father and the same man closing his eyes when he plays Neil Young on guitar.

families, skateboarding, music, going to jail for dumpstering, the shitty unrealness of macho whiteboy politics and the realness of what is in our bodies, the realness of actual struggles for liberation.
1.60 or 2.40 intl

Don't Be A Dick
A zine about rape culture, male socialization, a critique of traditional porn, the importance of consent.
It is so important that guys start doing this work, and this is a really good introduction zine about these issues.
excerpt from intro: "This is a zine intended primarily for straight, non-trans men to do something about sexual violence and rape in their own lives. In a way, I'm writing this for my past self - I could have used something like this a couple of years ago..."

1.75 us, 2.60 intl

Class Study Group

2010-02-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine started a study group with some other people in Pittsburgh about class. Here's a link to the readings they are doing so you can start your own study group in your town.
Class Class link

sick zine, call for submissions

2010-01-16T19:48:00.000-08:00

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS ON PHYSICAL ILLNESS

Sick: A Compilation Zine on Physical Illness collects peoples' experiences with illness to help establish a collective voice of those impacted by illness within radical/left/diy communities. The zine is meant to be a resource for those who are living with illness as well as those who have not directly experienced it themselves. We're doing a second issue of Sick now and are looking for submissions.

Submissions should be 750-2500 words. Somewhat longer pieces may be considered, or may be hosted on the Sick zine website. We are open to submissions in other media, such as comics, drawings, photography, or collage. For more information on the previous edition and the ongoing project, see our website: http://sickzine.blogspot.com

Please be in touch with questions and submission ideas: sickzine at gmail dot com

(Some) Potential Topics:
Personal narratives of living with illness • Illness and support within left/ radical / DIY scenes • Current or historic examples of community-based groups that focus on the politics of illness or support of community members • Intersections of race / gender / sexuality / class / culture and illness • Experiences with doctors, hospitals and treatments • Body image / identity and illness • Bridging the space between disability and illness • Disempowerment / empowerment of illness • Mental health and physical illness • The experiences of being a caregiver • Living with multiple diagnoses • Insurance • The financial burden of illness • Sex and illness • Illness and creativity • The invisibility of illness • Providing support to someone living with illness • Creating and sustaining community support networks

In addition to pieces by individuals, we'd like to include a few pieces about the work that community-based groups have done to address the politics of illness and to support those dealing with illness. If you are a member of such a group, please feel free to write!

THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS ARPIL 17th, 2010

Please forward this message on, and spread the word!

Additionally, if you know anyone who would like to donate funds of any amount to support the printing of this issue, please have them contact sickzine at gmail dot com

new zines to the distro

2010-01-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

New zines to the riotgrrrrdistro

Rad Dad 16
Rad Dad won the "best zine of 2009", and I'm so proud! It's a great compilation zine about being a father and a radical. It "Brings together voices that are asking different questions and telling different stories about what it means to be a parent in a fractured, unequal, comsumerist society." written by "...queer parents, parents of color, radical feminist parents, parents who are redefining what family means."
Adrienne Skye Rogers interviews her dad about, among other things, growing up as a Communist's son, what he remembered about his father's arrest (during the McCarthy Era, he was arrested for conspiracy to overthow the US government).
there's a story by James Allardice about doing a charity bike ride with his dad, and how their roles changed during it, as he started taking care of his dad in new ways. also: Top Ten Books for the Whole Family, a review of My Baby Rides the Short Bus, and more.

Rad Dad #15
a story by Mark Ali about teaching English, talking to students about how people judge eachother outside first, inside last, and how he made decisions in defiance of the expectations of him. There's an article about kids on the playground, dealing with bullies with "a diversity of tactics, escalating to direct action". There's an article where a new parent asks different revolutionary parents "If you could communicate one thing to a radical parent to be, what would it be?", Concrete Things You can Do to Support Parents or ChildCare Givers
and more.

Rad Dad #14
has an interview with Claude Marks, a revolutionary who was (I think) an underground revolutionary in the 70's; an article about objects and consumerism; one about a kid who was murdered by cops, and how the father wishes he could honestly explain the racist world to his daughtor; one called Principles for Unconventional Parenting.
3.75 us, 4.30 intl

Kerbloom! #80
These little pretty zines have been coming out forever, every two months. They are done on letterpress, which is the kind of printing press where you have to put each letter in one at a time.
Issue 80 is about being sober, and whether she is secretly straigtedge even though she doesn't like hardcore music or straightedge thugs. It's pretty funny and sweed.
2.60 us, 3.60 intl

Ker-bloom 81: Artnoose and the Terrible Horrible No-good Very Bad Year
"It was suppose to be my Bounce Back Year. Instead it seemed like my Knock Down Year." failed relationship, loss of personal power, her Inner Nietzsche, wolves wearing human skin. It ends with the Dream Shop of 2010.
2.60 us, 3.60 intl

Scenery is Free #1
I don't normally like travel zines very much, but this one is from Malasia, and written in
English, and the English in it is so strange and beautiful that even a rant about consumerism becomes like poetry, and allows me to rethink the thoughts again.
Like this: "Please don't heritage to email us before May 2006 because we want to go to United State to do shitty jobs at White House in Washington DC. Then we go to Los Vegas, Hollywood and California for gambling, shopping and surfing. If they are allowed us enter their country. That's cool. It's about dealing with all the people who living in a world full of illusions and afraid by their shadows."
Mostly this issue is about traveling around Europe. It's pretty great.
3.50 us, 5.00 intl

Ladyfest Syracuse NY

2009-12-26T13:05:00.000-08:00

I'll be speaking at Ladyfest in Syracuse NY on Feb 20, and hopefully Snarlas will play too. They need more bands and maybe more speakers, so if you want to get in touch with them, here's contact info: womensactioncommittee@gmail.com or womensactionscommittee.blogspot.com

also, if anyone has contacts for Ithaca NY, for punk shows or speaking at Cornell, let me know.

other upcoming events:
Snarlas shows: Jan 11 with Can Kickers, Hello Shitty People, and Frozen Teens, at the Smiling Skull, athens ohio

Jan 13, Snarla's in Pittsburgh, (I don't know where) with Hello Shitty People and Frozen Teens and more

new zines to distro

2009-12-26T10:01:00.000-08:00

New Zines to Riotgrrrrdistro!

New To Everything #8
Sometimes I wish I wrote a zine just like this one, and maybe sometime soon I will. It's quarter sized, so it fits in your pocket, and it has little stories a couple pages long each, about various things; her dad's motorcycle, listening to the oldies, the feeling of being on the way to somewhere or something. Each story is self-contained, sweet and insightful. It reminds me to want more stories from the people I know, to know them better.
It reminds me of what is good in life.

The Visible Woman
I love this zine! Written by a woman in her 50's, it's about how older women are turned invisible by our society. She says, "In some ways it's oddly restful, but when I think about it, it makes me angry. I don't want to be invisible anymore."

A How To Guide on Starteing a DIY Events Calendar (in your town)
This zine is by Leanne of New to Everything and it is pretty self-explanitory. It has examples of different towns calendars, and a bunch of tips and a bunch of inspiration!

Tuff Town #1
I'd like to hang out with Naomi. Her zine touches on so many things I think about - wanting to stay in a small town but also wishing there were more than a handful of people to keep projects going; wanting to believe in ghosts; wanting to be accountable to her neighborhood; violence against queers; how fucked up it is when "radicals" try to dismiss the real shit in our lives (like class, race, gender violence) as "personal issues"; all kinds of things, written in an urgent and articulate way.
1.60 or 2.40 intl

Totally Rich
Throw out all the anarchist theory and just read this zine! It is a cutsy story about one morning when the trees started growing money and noone had to do anything for money anymore and could just do meaningful work.
It is written by the Second Maine Militia, which includes Carole Chute, author of The Beans of Egypt Maine
2.85 or 3.60 intl

Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism, by Alison Piepmeier

2009-12-21T20:27:00.000-08:00

Girl Zines: making media, doing feminism. By Alison Piepmeier. New York University Press

I want to recommend this book, if you like academic books, and I'm not just saying that because I'm one of the featured zine writers. What I love about it most, is that it looks at zines, their history, their often overlooked place in feminism, and in doing so, talks about embodiment, about the contradictions inside of each of us, and talks about what we can do to challenge and change each other, ourselves and the world.
When I first found out about feminism, I mostly just knew liberal feminism - voting, critique of mass culture, etc. For the most part, it didn't speak to me or inspire me. When I found feminist writers like Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and the writers in the book This Bridge Called My Back, I was inspired, forever inspired. They talked not just about what was outside of us, but also how it ate up our insides, and how our source of power was inside of us, demonized by patriarchy. When I was told that we had to reach to our most feared places and work from there. work on social change and inside change at the same time. Believe in ourselves. Speak and listen.
Sometimes I get tired of zines and wish people would read more serious books. Sometimes I wish college people would quit college and write zines. Sometimes I think it is ok that everyone does different things.
This book put girl zines in the same trajectory as writers like Audre Lorde, and it helped me to take zines more seriously. Truthfully, it usually is zines that inspire me, when I get a really great zine, or even a shitty one that is honestly looking at shit and working it figure it out - the voices of girl zine writers inspire me more than anything.
This book also had a nice little history of girl zines that I didn't know about. And I like how it traces girl zines back to the 1800's women's health pamphlets and the 70's feminist underground papers.
I haven't read the whole book yet, but the chapter called "We Are Not All One: Intersectional Identities in Grrrl Zines" is really excellent. She talks about a number of zine writers, including Mimi Nguyen, one of my favorite zine writers who edited and Evolution of a Race Riot, - a very smart zines that wanted to "subvert the dominant punk rock order & yes, whiteboy/girl hegemony."
Coming from an activist world into a zine world, it was really great to me when I'd read zines that were girls who were coming from academic language, using and fucking with that language.
Sometimes I like theory and sometimes it makes me laugh with it's over important language, but I can't hide the fact that it really does help me think more deeply, and more seriously.

new zines in

2009-12-06T10:32:00.000-08:00

what I've been doing: chainsawing. waitressing. Planting garlic. Getting ready to get two puppies and two sheep.

New Zines to the distro at www.dorisdorisdoris.com/zinecat

Skinned Heart This is a beautiful and intense personal and political zine about racism, feminism, child abuse, rape, mental illness, cultural appropriation and a bunch of other life things. This is the kind of zine that first got me into zines and that I don't see enough of these days - that takes personal experiences, sees them through a political lens, and makes you feel, not just think.

2.50 u.s. or 3.60 intl

Cometbus #53

Cometbus was the first zine I ever read. It is stories, social commentary, interviews, mini-novels, punk. This issue is half Aaron Cometbus's writing and half Maddalena Polletta. Aaron has an interview with the founder of PUNK magazine, back in the very beginning of punk. and a couple stories, one of which mentions the time I stole a car to come visit him.

Maddalena's stories are about her mom dieing and the aftermath. Very beautifully written. Bleak and stunning.

3.75 u.s. or 4.50 int'l

SnarLibs

2009-11-28T09:18:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to a blog about working in a center for domestic violence survivors:
cleanerlight.blogspot.com

today: working on the cover for the Encyclopedia of Doris, fixing the lightbulb in the dashboard of the car, trying to remember how to play the bass guitar.

Snarlas tour zine out! boring, like every other tour zine, but not quite as boring. It has SnarLibs, which are like MadLibs only Snarla related.

$3 SnarLibs pob 29 Athens OH 45701

new zines

2009-11-27T18:25:00.000-08:00

Snarlas is playing at the Smiling Skull, Dec 8 with Not My Dog and hopefully Spooktober. Our record is actually out!

What I did this weekend: fed my neighbors sheep and dogs and chickens. and 8 puppies. Hopefully I am getting two. finally. dogs.

New zines in riotgrrrrdistro,

Gender Oppression, Abuse, Violence: Community Accountability Within the People of Color Progressive Movement
this is one of the best explanations of identifying and dealing with abuse within radical communities I've seen.
It is very straightforward, defining sexual harassment, sexual abuse/assault and intimate partner abuse,
talking about denial, minimizing, victim blaming, counter-organizing, and other ways people try to manipulate and get out of being accountable.
It has a great, detailed section on creating an accountablity process with the goal as "transformation toward liberation".

3.00

Taking Risks: Implementing Grassroots Community Accountability Strategies

written by a collective of women of color from Communities Against Rape and Abuse

this zine is a description of CARA's accountability guidelines for addressing sexual violence.
It's a great introduction to forming an community accountability structure.

the principles discussed are:

1.Recognizing the humanity of everyone involved. 2. Prioritizing self-determination of the survivor. 3. Identify a simultaneous plan for safety and support fo the survivor as well as others in the community
4. Carefully consider the potential consequences of your strategy. 5. Organize Collectively. 6. Make sure everyone in the accountability-seeing group is on the same page with their political analysis of sexual violence. 7. Be clear and specific about what your group wants from the aggressor in terms of accountability. 9. Consider help from the aggressor's friends, family and people close to the aggressor.
10. Prepare to be engaged in the process for the long haul.

2.50

Harlot, RN

a lot of my friends have been going into nursing school and becoming nurses lately, and I always think they should talk together because
they all have such intense experiences and feelings and I think it is such a great thing to be doing and I can't imagine working within the
established medical system and I am so glad when there are good people who are. So this is a zine by Megan, who is part of the "Down There" collective
and is now a nurse. This zine talks about how she ended up becoming a nurse, difficult things about it, union stuff, family stuff, and lots of other things, plus a sweet section on
plants she loves.

I love Megan and I love this zine.

1.50

The Zine Yearbook is a book with articles, stories, comics, and all that kind of stuff from lots of different zines. It's always great and it's a great way to find out about a lot of zines you don't know about.

6.00

pob 29 Athens oh 45701

distro

2009-10-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

The Snarla's 7" record should be out any day for real, like probably on Monday. If you have a record player, and want to get one, it's $5. Also, I've updated and added a bunch of stuff to my distro a bunch so if you want to check it out, you should

riotgrrrr zine distro

doris 27 out now!

2009-09-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

Just to let you know that doris 27 is out now!!! It's 2.65 by mail - or cash, stamps, check (cindy crabb) or paypal at doriszine@yahoo.com
xxx

upcoming events

2009-08-01T15:31:00.000-07:00

Here in Athens OHIO, we are doing a womens + transgender self-defense skill share on Monday Aug 17 6:00 at Highland Park. It is open to all, but please respect.

Our band, Sister Shuffle, changed it's name to Snarlas and are going on mini tour in August. Here's when. First, two shows in Athens:
Friday, Aug 21 Athens Ohio, at the Smiling Skull, with Stupid Party
Monday Aug 23 Athens Ohio, at the Union Bar, with Future Virgins and AD/DC

Asheville, NC Tuesday Aug 25
Chattanooga TN Wednesday Aug 26, at Toms house
Athens GA, Thursday 27, at the Hanger
Gainsville, FL, Friday 28, at Kickstand
Pensacola, FL, Sat 29, Sluggos.

the revolution starts at home zine

2009-05-31T08:30:00.000-07:00

I am so excited about this new zine. It's about community acountability to partner abuse. Hopefully it'll get published as an anthology, but in the meantime, you can download it at the INCITE website. here is a link to where you can read it or download it online, at the INCITE women of color against violence website. here it is: the revolution starts at home

sister shuffle video

2009-04-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a video of our band
for video click here

doris reading

2009-04-23T14:00:00.001-07:00

I'll be doing a reading on May 9, Saturday, at the Donkey here in Athens.

new edition of doris anthology + do you want to help us on our land?

2009-04-04T10:22:00.000-07:00

Oh! My new pressing of my old Anthology is out with a new cover that is so beautiful! If you lost your old copy, or is you've been meaning to get one for a present, maybe you should now! Look! you can order it from me - $13 by mail, cindy crabb pob 29 Athens OH 45701. or the website at dorisdorisdoris.com/zinecat
horray! also, we have a ton of work that we need to do on our land, so if you want to come out and help, let me know. If you are already my friend, call me. If I don't know you yet, we are hoping people who are self motivated and ok at being alone (or who have a friend to bring to keep company), who like camping - because we have this house but we are also very used to spending most of our time alone and so get a little crazy if people are around 24 hours a day. ... so we are looking for people to come for a week, who would want to help with gardening, house fixing, and a million projects. It would probably be like 5 hours of work a day. If you don't feel like you know how to do stuff, we can teach you stuff. send letter of something to me at pob 29 athens oh 45701.
xx
cindy

recomended distro

2009-03-16T15:09:00.000-07:00

I just want to recomend this distro for getting zines. stranger danger

fund for survivor support work

2009-03-14T10:05:00.001-07:00

FUND FOR SURVIVOR SUPPORT WORK

Philly's Pissed believes in supporting survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence in a way that provides options and allows the survivor to make their own decisions. We think it is important for survivors to have choices that do not rely on cops, government or big nonprofits. Who can offer better support to survivors than people and communities close to them?

We have a little bit of money to support other people doing this work in their own communities. We are very excited about work that creates alternatives to the police and criminal justice system, work that supports survivors who are people of color and/or trans, work that is being done in rural areas and work that is about sustainability and long-term change.

If this is you, please write to phillyspissedproposal@gmail.com or to PP c/o Timothy, 921 S 50th Street, Philadelphia PA 19143. Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do and the money needs of the work you are doing. We will be able to give several groups money ranging from $100-$500 each. You do not need to have any kind of 501(c)3 or nonprofit status. Deadline is May 1st; please feel free to write us if you have questions or need more info.

zines & shows

2009-02-04T14:38:00.000-08:00

I have some new additions to my zine distro:
one on chronic pain, one sweet sad personal zine, a new multiplicities zine, and more. to go to newzines website, click here

upcoming Sister Shuffle shows:
Feb 26, thursday Chattanooga
Feb27 Friday Asheville NC 34 Edgehill Ave
March 10 at Athens Ohio U. Max's thesis show. I'm trying to get together a multimedia performance piece. Hopefully it'll be ready in time.
Pittsburgh! March 12 with Stupid Party, ShellShag and This Bike...
Athens: Sat March 14 with Panty Herst and Welcome to Concrete. This is a fundraiser for my friend Samantha who survived a 50 foot fall and has extensie spinal injury. If you'd like to send in a donation, she would really appreciate it. cindy crabb pob 29, Athens oh 45701.

also, I'm looking for college speaking gigs for the fall on the West Coast, and in general for anywhere, so if you're in school and you think there's a student group that would want to host me to speak, get in touch!
thanks!

zine reviews

2008-12-28T20:25:00.000-08:00

zine reviews:
Firehazard #2 Katrina 259 Williams St. Prov. RI 02906
Punk rock, anarchy, food, kombucha, gardens, rage, friends, mental health, healing, books, bikes, trees, crushes, avacados, pizza, accordians, tea.

This zine starts out with a youth liberation manifesto and moves through a little bit of everything: receipes and stories and lists like "50 things I do when I feel like shit about being sexually assaulted". It's got really great drawings and feels like being let in. She says "a lot of times I let other people's problems surpass mine - maybe it's ok sometimes to stay home, sit in bed, drink tea..." and that's what it feels like. I want to stay in bed and put my desk on my lap and write a sweet zine like this too.

It's Not the End of the World! building a life with limp wrists: a zine about carpel tunnel, endonitis and how to keep your job from ruining your life Ocean Capewell POB 40144 Pittsburgh PA 15201
includes ips for specific jobs, like bike pizza delivery, dishwashing, construction, etc.

learning good consent zine

2008-11-03T19:20:00.000-08:00

I have a new zine that I helped edit that's just out. It's called Learning Good Consent and is $5 though the mail - cindy pob 29 athens oh 45701

There's a pdf of the zine posted here:

http://zinelibrary.info/learning-good-consent

also, did I mention me and my sister just bought a house! and acres of forest and fields, and a 5 car garage to start the rock camp for grownup girls and other people who weren't encouraged to play music!

sister shuffle

2008-10-31T15:37:00.000-07:00

Sister Shuffle and doris speaking tour (everything is the band unless it has some weird italic title that sounds like the title to a weird speech thing.

Tuesday 11 - Pittsburgh. zine reading and show with Bad Daughtors , artnoose, some others. 5532 Baywood. 6:00 potluck, 7:00 start

Wed 12 - Baltimore with Abiku and Mian the Monster at 9:00 1729 Maryland Ave

Thurs 13 New Paltz - Breaking Silence: the Radical Necessity of Telling Our Stories I think it's around 7:00 at the Student Union Building in room 100

Friday 14 Brooklyn The Fort. 1414 Lincoln Pl, brooklyn ny

Saturday 15 Boston paper cut zine library. at the democracy center 45 Mt Auburn St in Harvard Square. with superpositive hiphop by Sarah Bean, off kilter rockcombo Frogs! Everywhere!, Up the Creek = lulabyes, + short movies. + maybe I have to talk about zines or something.

Sunday 16 Providence RI with Queening 9:00 115 Empire St at AS200

Monday 17 Boston Self-publishing, feminist zines, and social change or something like that. speech at the Radcliff, Schlesinger library. (That's Harvard!) 1:00 (I think. maybe noon)

Monday 17 Brattleboro VT with Uke of Phillips, corners and another amazing band.

please help

2008-10-11T12:31:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine is in the hospital with extensive injurys, from what I think was a hate crime. She is a transgender woman. She's going to be in the hospital for awhile, and desperately needs financial help. her hospital bills are covered, but we need to keep paying her rent so she won't loose her housing for when she gets out, and so she can set up ongoing care for after she gets out of the hospital. If you can, please donate. thank you.
you can donate through pay pal at temergencyfund@yahoo.com. or send a check to me Cindy Crabb pob 29 Athens OH, 45701, and I'll send it to her caretaker.

punk problems radio show

2008-10-05T13:36:00.000-07:00

Arwen and Erin are recording the new "You Got A Problem"
You Got a Problem
A new radio show with advice for punks from punks. Special guests. Caustic music. Strong opinions. Hilarious asides.

Stupid problems? Terrible problems? Call: (206) 600-1030 or Email: punkproblems@gmail.com.

You call or email us with your punk problem and your phone number, and a good time to call you on Sunday, and we'll call you and give you advice. It will be posted on the MRR Radio website.

Feel free to spread the information far and wide! We're trying to do this monthly, and we'll need a backlog of punk problems! Thanks

Sali

2008-10-05T13:19:00.000-07:00

*please be aware that the following may trigger survivors of assault.*

Friends-

I write this email to bring attention to the assault and murder of a woman I knew.

Sali was living in Oaxaca, Mexico teaching women's self defense, working for indigenous rights and dancing when she was raped brutally murdered this past week.

In searching the web for news of her death, I was saddened, though not shocked to find that the only outlets reporting on this horrific tragedy were independent media, and small foreign press.Like many of the horrors committed the world over, the assault and murder of a woman, especially a woman doing social justice work, will never get the sort of mainstream press that is given to movie stars getting DUI's, or an NFL firing (both top stories on internet news today.)

Sali was a passionate and tough-ass woman whose murder I heard about only because she is part of my small community.

According to the National Organization for Women, 'Every day four women die in this country as a result of domestic violence, the euphemism for murders and assaults by husbands and boyfriends. That's approximately1,400 women a year, according to the FBI.' And, 'Every year approximately 132,000 women report that they have been victims of rape or attempted rape, and more than half of them knew their attackers.It's estimated that two to six times that many women are raped, but do not report it.'

How many of these women's stories do we hear. More importantly, how isit that more than four times as many women are raped every year (that being a low estimate based on reported rapes ONLY) in the U.S. alone as die from cervical cancer, yet we have public service announcements, and government funded programs to get our teenage girls shots to 'protect' themselves from the latter. Maybe if a girl could get a shot to prevent rape. Maybe we could just make it the woman's responsibility to prevent rape.... wait, we already do. Where is the outrage for the terror that more that half the world's population lives with, being targets of sexual violence and control.

What about the more than 350 women who have been raped and murdered since 1993 in Juarez, Mexico alone. Most of the cases still unsolved.

What about the over 3,200 Guatemalan women who have been abducted and murdered, with many of them raped, tortured, and mutilated between 2000 and 2007. (for more info., http://www.libertadlatina.org/ )

I am sending this email out to make sure that much of the work that Sali was living for, and died in the midst of is left overwhelmingly unfinished. It is left to us.

I write this knowing that the women reading this email live with this everyday on some level.

I write this with the hope that you will forward this story. That you will remember Sali and want to make sure that she is not forgotten.

That you will find every way possible in your life to challenge and destroy sexism, in all it's forms.

I write this so that you help me create a different world for my yet to be born child.

Because I am terrified.

- Quinn Russell, Olympia, WA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following is the initial report about Salli's death. Updates follow.
International Human Rights Accompanier Raped and Murdered in Oaxaca

by Julie Webb-Pullman, New Zealand
The body of United States citizen Marcella 'Sali' Grace was found on September 24 in a deserted cabin 20 minutes from the village of San José del Pacífico, in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. She had been raped, brutally beaten, and killed. A villager who had gone to feed dogs in the area noticed a bad smell and informed the municipal authorities, who found and removed the body.Julieta Cruz, a friend of Sali's, was only able to identify her from her tattoos, as her face was unrecognisbale.

Sali had been working as an 'international accompanier' in Oaxaca, whereby foreign nationals provide protective accompaniment to human rights workers, political activists,and members of social organisations who are under threat,such as members of the Asemblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO) who are continuing to suffer widespread repression by the corrupt government of Ulises Ruis Ortiz.In the weeks before her death Sali had told friends and colleagues that she believed she was under surveillance, and was being subjected to political persecution.
In a practice that has become only too familiar with the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of Oaxacans since 2006, the Oaxacan Attorney General's Office is dragging its heels,doing little to progress the investigation or bring the killer/s to justice. Despite the existence of witnesses able to identify those responsible for Sali's rape and murder,they have not been interviewed. Friends and colleagues of Sali's trying to find out what happened to her have been denied access to any information, including the case number and autopsy results, leading to growing concern that her murder is related to the widespread repression and persecution of social movements in Oaxaca, and is now being directly targeted at international observers. Many believe that the intellectual authors of Sali's death are the same as those who ordered the repression against the people of Oaxaca in their struggle for justice and freedom over the last few years.
'In the face of these bloody events,and for the brutal cruelty used against compañera Sali, wedon't disregard that this could be a clear message directed at all the people of Oaxaca, as well as the compañeros insolidarity from different parts of the world; we say this based on the recent national and international news which says that APPO members were the ones who killed U.S.journalist Bradley Roland Will. We are worried about the distortion of information like this, and about the obvious bureaucratic slowness with which the authorities involvedare already treating this investigation, and that these things will prevent us getting true justice for our compañera,' said a spokesperson of the Oaxacan women's movement.

Marcella 'Sali' Grace
In a cruel irony, she also noted that one of Sali's activities in Oaxaca was teaching women's self-defense courses, in recognition of the endemic violence against women there and to help them walk 'free and respected.'
Oaxacan women's groups have been joined by other social movements and individuals to demand that the Oaxaca Attorney General's Office immediately clarify the facts surrounding Sali's murder, conduct a full and speedy investigation, and bring the perpetrator/s to justice. They are also protesting outside United States consular offices in Mexico, encouraging them also to demand justice for their citizen.
'Enough is enough of the murders, violence and hate against women who fight for justice,' they said.
Those who Sali died trying to protect are now calling on concerned people everywhere, especially other human rights workers and women, to join their demand for a proper investigation into her death, by sending an email to them at
rebeldiasentrelazadas@yahoo.com or telephoning (01 951) 5178190CIPO

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mexican Activists Turn Over Mexico City Man to Police in Sally Grace Eiler Murder Case
by Kristin Bricker - September 27, 2008

Last night Mexican police transferred Omar Yoguez Singu, 32, to the Oaxacan attorney general's custody for murdering 20-year-old Marcella'Sally' Grace Eiler. The AP reports that he claims he had consensual sex with Sally, then killed her with a machete during an argument.

Yoguez Singu was captured thanks to the quick action of Oaxacan activists who publicized her murder internationally.

Yoguez Singu raised his friends' suspicions when he returned to Mexico City from a recent trip to San Jose del Pacifico, were locals discovered Sally's decaying and mutilated body in a cabin. They noticed that he was injured and that his two dogs were missing, so they asked him what happened. Yoguez Singu reportedly told them that one of his dogs bit a child in the community, so locals tried to kill the dog with a machete. He allegedly told them that he was injured attempting to save the dog.

Thanks to the widely disseminated statement signed by Oaxacan organizations that Sally worked with, people in Yoguez Singu'scircle of friends knew that a woman was murdered in San Jose del Pacifico while Yoguez Singu was there. They called activists in Oaxacato confirm Yoguez Singu's story about his dogs.

Townspeople from San Jose del Pacifico denied Yoguez Singu's story. They said bothof the dogs were still with them because Yoguez Singu had left withoutthem. They also reportedly said he was the last person they saw with Sally before she disappeared.

When Yoguez Singu's friends confronted him about his lies, he reportedly confessed to them. His friends kept an eye on him while Oaxacan activists made the trip to Mexico City to obtain an arrest warrant.

When the arrest warrant was finalized, activists reportedly arranged to meet police in a supermarket to hand over Yoguez Singu. The AP reports that he was arrested on Wednesday, September 24.

Activists were quick to place Sally's murder in the context of rampant unchecked violence against women in Oaxaca. They note that aggressors are hardly ever punished for their crimes. 'There is no justice in Oaxaca,' said a spokesperson for the Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca - Ricardo Flores Magon (CIPO-RFM).

For further updates please visit: http://angrywhitekid.blogs.com/

asheville survivors art project

2008-10-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

This is from Asheville NC Survivors group:

Shit you have always wanted to say.
So, many months ago when some friends and I started kicking around the idea of this art show we came up with an idea for a piece that we wanted to do. (IF YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE ART SHOW, GO TO MY BLOG- the art show info is under the R.A.W. project on the sidebar). Myself, Laura, and Anna Young are heading this thing up, but it lives on participation from multiple folks.
Here's the skinny-
We want to record you saying the shit that you have always wanted to say.... the things you would have screamed at your abuser, The questions you would have had for your aunt who knew what was happening but did nothing, The comebacks you had for that guy who objectified you on the street, The tears you have cried by yourself- all of it, any of it. It matters and deserves to be heard... in addition to the fact that it feels fucking rad to get that stuff out!
There is going to be a location near downtown Asheville where we can do the recording basically any time of day (nice and private). It can be video or just audio if you want. It doesn't have to be composed, or well thought out. It can be to many people about many events, the world in general, to one person, or a love letter to yourself-Whatever needs to come out.
Eventually it will be thrown together in some sort of audio video something-or-other.
If you know that you would like to participate, or want more details, contact me at radicalsurvivorasheville@gmail.com

Thanks so much for considering participating. Please fell free to forward this to other folks as well.
much love
Lindsey Simerly

sister shuffle

2008-09-19T17:19:00.000-07:00

We're playing on Wednesday at the Union
here's some lyrics:

IT'S NOT ON TV

Act Up, Annie Lenox, Audre Lorde, Androgyny,
Annie Sprinkle, Cherie Moraga, Cyper and the Snow, Cell 16,
The Dyke March, Daniela, Discrimination Documentation Project,
Guerilla Girls, Gertrude Stein, Gay Liberation

We won't take for granted everything you organized and fought for
Don't you take us for granted
We will fight, we will fight, we will fight!

Harvey Milk, HotHead Piason, Indigo Girls, Amy Rae,
Joan Jet, James Baldwin, Jacks of Color, OK!
Kate Millet, Lesbian Avengers, Names Quilt Project Fed Up Queers
Ruby Fruit Jungle, Radical Cheerleaders, Snarla, Riot Grrrrl

We won't take for granted everything you organized and fought for
Don't you take us for granted
We will fight, we will fight, we will fight!

Sarah Schulman, Street Trans Action Revolutionaries,
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Stonewall, Silvia
Sex Panic! The Gay 90's! Sister Spit! Wilie and Joe!

Without you, I'd be invisible. Without you, I'd be dead.

GENERATION 5

tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me
We can trust eachother now
tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me
My arms around you dear
tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me
Your deepest secrets scared
tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me
There's nothing here to fear

There were days of murderous rage
I tried to plug your ears
There were nights I knew nothing about
I couldn't protect you
I couldn't protect you
Like no one protected me

I want revenge! someday, someway.

abortion doulas

2008-09-11T10:11:00.001-07:00

this is a link to a really interesting article about abortion doulas. click here for link

november events

2008-09-09T17:49:00.000-07:00

My band Sister Shuffle is going on a mini tour in November plus I'm doing a speaking thing in New Paltz NY, and am trying to get another student group to sponsor me to speak somewhere to make some money on the way - like in Providence RI or Philadelphia or Boston. (so if you're in a student group that's got funding and wants to spend some of it - I can do a talk on feminism/ breaking silence/ zines and self-education.

Here's the tenative schedule:
November
Tuesday 11 - Pittsburgh. Geoffs back porch
Wed 12 - Baltimore
Thurs 13 New Paltz (speaking and band)
Friday 14 Brooklyn (the fort)
Saturday 15 Boston (zine library)
Sunday 16 Providence RI (AS211 or something like that)
Monday 17 Brattleboro VT

call for submission - zine on loss, grief, families, survival

2008-09-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

I got this call for submission + am going to write for it, and thought you might want to too.

we're golden
a zine about loss, grief, families, and survival

on november 15, 2007, my father committed suicide. at the time, my family was in the midst of declaring bankruptcy, our house was going into foreclosure, and i had been out of school for three months because my parents couldn't afford the private school education we had decided on a year before. my father had attempted suicide in august, but failed the first time. i guess the second time we failed him.

we're golden is a documentation of my first year of grief. month by month. tear by tear. memory by memory. dedicated to my beautiful father and friend, john "two", in hopes that his life, and the life i've started to muddle through without him, can bring comfort, change, and perhaps even support as you grapple through your own stories of heartache, loss, or struggle.

pain, along with grief, is extremely individual. and for that purpose, i'm requesting submissions for we're golden from those who would like to share their own insights or stories on matters pertaining, but not limited to: suicide, death, families, bereavement, illness, financial burdens, friendship, therapy, education, the idea of "home", ...

what was your friend's memorial service like? what was it like to move out of your childhood home? what helped you through your grandparent's illness? what did your friend's do when your mother got sick? what helped? what didn't help? what could you do to help your friend through their depression? how did you support yourself through school? after school? when did you finally decide to seek help with bereavement? when did you realize that therapy was/wasn't helping? what band, author, person, movie, helped you through your grief?

every one of you has a story to tell. maybe you've told it before, maybe you tried to but couldn't, maybe you could barely make sense of the story yourself. but now i'm asking you to tell your story or remember a person you've lost in whatever way you like. the ultimate goal of this zine is to bring beauty and aid out of the pain we've felt; to remember the fights and the people; to make sense of our stories, and to help you make sense of yours.

what's really helped me through my grief is being able to talk about my dad - sharing my memories of the 19 years i got to spend with him, and ultimately, talking through what went wrong. it's painful and sad of course, but what's kept me sane is hearing other people's stories. being reminded that people before me have survived their ordeals or are still in the midst of their battles. knowing that our fragile selves have been tested and maybe, if you've found peace, i can too.

the release date will be january 15, 2009, which would have been my father's 59th birthday. i'm hoping to have each chapter be one month of the year and to have an outside submission in between each month. it's going to be a bit massive, yes, and very ambitious, but i think the end result will be something really important and meaningful, and i hope most of all helpful. submissions could be in whatever form you choose: story, poem, song, photograph, artwork, even a golden piece of advice or lesson learned, etc. the more variety, the better. please feel free to submit anonymously as well. any help, guidance, suggestions or support are of course encouraged and appreciated.

i haven't decided on a deadline, but i'd say december 1st is a safe date. you can email me at gmereg at gmail. real mail is great too! you can send me stuff at
43 hathaway road
bronxville, ny 10708

thanks for listening and happy september
love, grace

call for submission - zine on Physical Illness

2008-09-09T17:43:00.000-07:00

This was sent to me by a friend of a friend. (it's not me putting it together, but it looks like a really great project!)

Call for Submissions on Physical Illness

I am currently seeking submissions for a zine/pamphlet on physical
illness. This project aims to give voice to the experiences of people
living with illness, serve as a resource for those who are diagnosed
with illness, and further the dialogue around issues related to support
and illness. While I am principally seeking submissions from those who have experienced or are currently living with a serious physical health problem, I am also very interested in submissions from those who have indirectly experienced illness: caregivers, community members, partners, family members, etc.

Some possible topics include:
Personal narratives of living with illness • Illness and support within left /
radical / DIY scenes • Intersections of race / gender / sexuality / class / culture and illness • Experiences with doctors, hospitals and treatments • Body image / identity and illness • Disempowerment / empowerment of illness • Mental health and physical illness • Suggestions for navigating the world of being a ‘patient’ • The experiences of being a caregiver • Suggestions for providing support to someone living with illness • Creating and sustaining community support networks • How life changes after a diagnosis • Living with multiple diagnoses • Illness as taboo •
Insurance • The financial burden of illness • Sex and illness • Illness and creativity • Illness and isolation • The invisibility of illness

The deadline for submissions is December 30, 2008.

Please be in touch with questions and submission ideas:
illnesszine@gmail.com

Spread the word!

upcoming events

2008-08-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

Sister Shuffle Shows: Athens Ohio - Aug 8 at the Smiling Skull with From the Depths and Spoonboy.
Aug 24 at the Union

Zine Making Workshop and maybe a Fertility Awareness, Self-exam, ME overview workshop at LADYFEST DAYTON! Aug 13!

distro

2008-08-18T14:17:00.001-07:00

I have a bunch of new stuff in my distro, including a zine called Multiplicities that is the first zine published from the new social movement about to sweep the world - riot grrrrrrr press.

sister shuffle

2008-08-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

My new band, Sister Shuffle is me and my sister, Miguel and his sister Tessa.
Upcoming shows:
Aug 5 - Columbus, with Black Rainbow - somewhere under a bridge with a generator. Or maybe at Chad and Brian's house.
Tuesday Aug 11th or 12th (whichever tuesday is) in Athens Ohio with This Bike is a Pipebomb. at Brown Street House.

present for maggie

2008-07-24T12:38:00.000-07:00

Hi Maggie, are you out there? Maggie who lives in Brooklyn?
I made this for you. (make sure the volume is on. It might take a little while for the sound to come on)
click here for present

bitch magazine is hiring

2008-07-16T15:07:00.000-07:00

My good friend Debbie from Bitch magazine sent me this

Please spread as far and wide as you possibly can...

----------
Here at Bitch, we’re in search of a perfect someone to join our tiny
but dedicated staff as a program director (full-time) at our office in
Portland, Oregon. Someone bright, with a deep talent and love for
analyzing media/pop culture from a perspective rooted in social/
economic justice, who’s passionate about both print publishing and
newer (to us, at least) forms like online, audio, and video, someone
excited about helping shape the future of the work we do at Bitch (and
who recognizes Bitch’s potential), someone committed to DIY/grassroots
operating, who understands Bitch’s role as both critiquing what’s
crappy and praising what’s good, who’s as excited about Bitch as a
multimedia organization as Bitch as a magazine…

All that and more. We’re asking for a lot, yes, but as the saying
goes, You’ll never get what you don’t ask for.

As we mentioned, we are a tiny staff (hi, there are five of us!).
We’re also at a critical moment. For the first time in our 12-year
history, we’re not in financial crisis (if you’re familiar with the
realities of independent publishing, you’ll know this is a huge
accomplishment). We’re beginning the process of infusing our work with
a set of core values and visions. And though we were originally
created as just a magazine, our work is evolving into a movement. In
many ways we have unlimited growth potential.

In other words, we have some exciting things happening, part of which
is bringing a new organization into being. This is what “nonprofit
gurus” call an organizational refounding – evolving, moving forward,
asking questions, creating space for new visions and voices.

So what would your role at Bitch be?

Right now we’re calling it a program director position, but this could
change depending on the outcomes of this search and our visioning
process. In many ways our program director will be like the editorial/
content director for the magazine (and may also be involved in our
website, but we’re hoping to create an additional position soon for
someone to oversee the site), but since we’re so much more than our
editorial content, the program director will also be responsible for
helping direct and maintain the vision of the organization, as well as
things like fundraising, outreach, attending events, doing some public
speaking, and just generally being a huge advocate for Bitch. In other
words, we’re looking for someone who’s a highly skilled editor and is
excited about helping us grow as an organization and reach our
potential.

Also, though we’ve grown tremendously since the magazine was
originally founded (we currently print about 50,000 copies of each
issue), we’re still very much a DIY operation and want to remain that
way. Our grassroots publishing model is integral to our work, so we’re
looking for someone who’s as committed to that as we are. We’re
looking for someone who will actively seek out ways of publishing
quality (critical, thoughtful, etc.) content while being mindful of
our tight budget, and is excited about helping us evolve into a
multimedia organization

Experience/skills that are essential to this position:
- At least three years features/developmental editing experience
- Strong familiarity with past and present trends in media and pop
culture
- Excellent communication and organizational skills
- Excellent grasp of grammar and spelling
- Stellar proofreading and copyediting abilities; familiarity with
Chicago style
- Proficiency with Excel, Word, and InDesign
- A strong capacity to multi-task, prioritize, and delegate
- Experience with web writing/editing
- Experience with video and podcasting technology a major plus

Personality traits/skill sets that are helpful in a small organization
like ours:
- Clear and frequent communication
- Ability to collaborate and share decision-making in small groups
- Ability to think creatively even when resources are tight
- Strong initiative, drive, and self-direction, ability to work
independently
- A sense of humor

As an effort to live out our commitment to systemic social change and
grassroots organizing, we encourage politically radical folks from
marginalized identities/backgrounds (people of color, people from poor
and working class backgrounds, queer-identified folks, etc.) and
others committed to anti-oppression, collective, grassroots organizing
work to apply.

In the interest of transparency, you should know:
- Regrettably, the only way to our office is up a set of about 15
stairs. We are not wheelchair-accessible.
- The job is based in Portland, Oregon, and unfortunately we’re unable
to cover moving expenses (unless you would like to start a fundraising
campaign for the cause).

Please include a cover letter that addresses these questions
(apologies if these seem like hoops, but we hope you’ll understand
that we have a lot riding on these decisions):
* What would you like us to know about you, and what you’d bring to
Bitch?
* How long have you been reading Bitch, and what has your perception
of it been through that time? (Please be honest; we’re not sensitive
and constructive criticism is always welcome.)
* In what ways do you identify (or not) with the word feminist?
* What do you think of both the title Bitch and the subtitle Feminist
Response to Pop Culture? (If you could change one/both of them, what
would you change them to?)

Salary and Benefits:
* $33,680/year, salary, exempt, paid medical/dental/vision

Closing date for applications: July 31
Anticipated start date: mid-August

Please email detailed cover letter (*answering all the questions,
please!*), resume and three references to publishing@b-word.org.
Please write “program director position” in the subject line.
Or mail to: B-Word, Debbie Rasmussen, 4930 NE 29th Ave, Portland, OR
97211
No phone calls, faxes, or drop-ins. No, no!

new zine!

2008-07-11T14:49:00.001-07:00

I have a new zine out! I know! Already!
ok, not quite yet, but in a couple weeks. It is at the printer right now. If you want to preorder, you can go to the doris website or send a couple dollars and some stamps to pob 29 athens ohio 45701. or tell your local bookstore or record store to order some!

also in the doris news, at the SF zine fair on the 19th at 4:00 I'll be doing a talk and question and answer.
xx
cindy

call for mrr health issue

2008-07-11T14:07:00.000-07:00

Dear colleagues in punk,

In reflection on Lance Hahn's tragic and premature death last October, and the accumulating health concerns of many of the rest of us as we totter into our 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, we at MRR have decided to put out a Punks & Health special issue.
The focus of this issue will be on how we can navigate the broken health care system to best take care of ourselves. It will be dedicated to Lance, who was so much a part of MRR and the scene for so many years, and hopefully it can also be a forum to remember the others we have lost in these last decades. Lance's early death might well have been avoided. Some of us are ill right now, or might be soon. It's time we start paying attention.

There is no denying that we sometimes put ourselves in the path of risk. But we also have extraordinary resources available to avoid and confront these "special" risks, as well as the ordinary perils of growing older. In some ways the punk community is ahead of mainstream America: biking, diet, community support, etc. We want to cover all of this: the good and the bad, the self-destructive and the redemptive.
Rather than having this issue be a mind-numbing collection of articles about obscure herbal treatments, I envision a funny, personal, conflicted issue with plenty of argument about methods; art, comics, and memoirs ("My First Punk Rock Injury" What's The Scoop, for example); along with some excellent, solidly researched articles about the state of health care and health. Interviews with older punks would be very helpful. Were there things they did that affected their health that they regret now? What health issues are they now facing (arthritis in their hands from guitar-playing? deafness? other things?) What advice do they have for younger punks?

Some topics to consider:
Routine Health
Diet
Drugs
Alcohol
Smoking
Trainhopping and similar exploits
Taking care of chronic conditions.
Sexual healthHPV/STDs.
Women's health
Annual check-ups
Dental
Glasses
Transgender health care issues
Alternative health care
Mental health: depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, etc.
Big picture; universal health care, alternatives? Candidates? Solutions?
Exercise: punk rock sports.

Some big questions:
How do we navigate the broken system, as punks -- find creative solutions? How do our attitudes and behaviors keep us unhealthy? How can we take better care of ourselves and each other?

And formats:
What's the Scoop Returns Photos Art Short "memoirs", like, "my trip to the ER" or whatever. Interesting punks interviewing other interesting punks, asking interesting questions. "Instructional" pieces, like, "When should you listen to the doctor and when should you tell him to fuck off?" Reprints of great shit you've seen elsewhere.
Please deseminate far and wide. I'd love to hear from you and start brainstorming with you. Deadline is August 5.
Thanks for reading.Arwen
arwencurry@gmail.com

mrr column - louise

2008-07-07T16:20:00.000-07:00

I keep forgetting to post my mrr columns. here's an old one I forgot to put up here.

Louise

Sometimes a new girl would move to our town who would be so punk that I would refer to her as "the one true punk girl". Louise was one of those girls - mohawk, fish-nets, bullet belt, black eyeliner. She helped start up a new show space when the possibility of there ever being a place for shows seemed hopeless, then she was the singer for the punk-as-fuck band Resserectum.

I remember running in to her one day, and she was dressed kind of square, and she said "do you think I look ok for court?" but she wasn't going because she'd been arrested, she was going as an advocate, working for a place called "Women At Risk". A year later my friend Molly was arrested for inciting a riot and assaulting a police officer. She was in the holding cell with bunch of other women, and somehow Louise's name came up, and Mollie was like "Louise! She's my friend!" and a few of the women couldn't say enough about how fucking great Louise is. This is when Louise became one of my heros.

Here is a quick little interview with her:

Q: Do the punks judge you for being involved in social work?

A: At first when I first got out of college and started working with Women At Risk I had some friends who were critical and who said I didn't do enough activism anymore. I see my job as activism. I feel like for 40 hours a week I'm doing activism, so my energy for other projects that I was doing before in the activist community was a little bit lower. There were people who had the stereotypical response "why do you want to work within the court system, why do you want to work in the jail, why do you want to be a part of the system?" because for some folk that goes against their punk values and what you need to do to be a punk. That critique was hard to hear at first, but it seemed mainly to come from people who didn't know much about the work that I did or people who didn't have the same viewpoints I have around activism. I feel like the longer I've been doing it the more used to it people have become, and I've had some people really tell me they think the work is amazing, how can they get involved, so it feels like it's changing. I don't know if that's because of who I choose to be around has changed, or if it's just become more socially acceptable, or if it's just like "ok, this is what Louise does, that's part of her identity". I'm not quite sure, and also the same thing about talking about my work, when I first started working there, I would talk about it at shows, and when I was having a beer at Rosettas, and it definitely got a bad reception.

Q:Why do you think?

A: Part of it that it's really tragic awful stuff, some of the stories I hear from women I work with are kind of unbelievable and it's too hard to hear. I don't think people were being disrespectful, it was just too heavy and too hard for people to want to hear about.And I respect that. But I have had to really seek out and find people who I can talk to.

Q: What exactly is Women At Risk and what do you do there?

A: Women At Risk is a alternative sentencing program for women who are involved in the criminal justice system. We advocate for women that instead of prison sentances they get access to mental health and substance treatment.

I am a case manager and outreach coordinator. As a case manager, I help women with housing, drive them to the food bank, help them access free or low cost child care, help them get access to medical care. We problem solve with them on all the issues that are getting in the way of them staying clean and sober in recovery, or being "successful" with their probation. Alot of the women have substance charges and poverty related charges, and because of their trauma histories and substance abuse, and the fact that they're women and often times poor women, and often poor women of color, there's a lot of barriers to being "successful" with probation and avoiding prison.

As an outreach coordinator, I go to the cell block in the buncombe county jail twice a week and meet with women and come up with plans to try and get them out of jail and avoid prison time and how to get treatment and housing and all those things that they need. A lot of it is coordinating resources, and part of it is they need to talk, so it's also like therapy.

Q: Is it non profit or is it government funded?

A: It's a private non-profit. We get some funding from state legislator, some funding from the Department of Corrections, because it costs somewhere around $70 a day to keep a woman in prison and $7 a day to have a women in our program, in the community with their family.

We've been able to get, surprisingly, Republicans on our side. We get some money from the ABC board, because they have to donate a percentage of their profits to substance treatment centers, and we have an amazing director who gets grants from a whole lot of different places.

The great thing about it is we get to run our program in the way we think it should be done, how we designed it. We aren't managed by any State entity at all, so we are able to create programs that are based on the women's needs and not based on some hierarchy or state organization that tells us how we can do our program.
Also, it's it's basically a feminist organization, and it's really different than working in most other social work. My coworkers know that I'm a punk, and that I do transgender activism. A lots of places aren't like that. It helps to be able to integrate my different worlds at least a little bit.

Q: Has working there changed your feeling about punk?

A: It's changed everything about my life. It's validated and confirmed my belief system about the prison system, it's hard and terrify to see that in fact the prison system is classist, racist, sexist, all those things, so while that's hard, it also validated my belief system.

There is kind of a tension between my involvement in the community and my work. Like I have to be at work at 9am so I can't go to every show that happens during the week, but also working in mental health and substance abuse, it's been hard for me to see how sometimes in the punk community these issues aren't really addressed. ...It's hard to see what can happen with addiction to these women who are like in their 50's, or 40's or even younger, who have been dealing with it forever, and then being around my peers, who I sometimes see as, I want to be careful with how I say this because I don't want to judge and we are all working on our shit in different ways, but sometime I fear that their lives could become unmanageable. So I've learned a lot around that and it's given me the opportunity to look at myself and what I need and how to address my own issues, which has been awesome and I had never even thought about it when I started working.

Also, working in the criminal justice system, I really have to be careful about getting arrested. So I'm not climbing around on rooftops or breaking into abandon buildings, and some of the kind of wild fun things that the punks are into, you know, drinking 40's at the railroad tracks, I can't do that, I mean, that's not a huge loss, but there are times, for example we had a show on Halloween at the new warehouse show space and the cops came and I felt like it was important for me to just get out of there, and definately when the war started, at the rallys I had to be careful about how far I wanted to go with my street level activism. Because if I get arrested, they'll say, "Oh, Women at Risk, they're criminals too."

It was hard at first to give up fun, living on the edge type activities. It was a big adjustment, even dying my hair and cutting my hair changed. I couldn't just show up with a rat tail and purple bangs anymore, which wasn't that big of a deal, but there were times when image stuff was really hard for me - not feeling like I could always represent who I was even ascetically, and what I've known for 10+ years. Learning how to dress to go into court - at first I felt like it was drag. I was like, "I can do this. It's just drag". I still haven't figured it all out. Part of me still wants to show my style, but at the same time, I want to be the best advocate for my clients in court. I've got to play by some rules, and you know, it's not about me.

Overall it's really awesome. My clients give me a kind of strength in a lot of ways, and I've learned so much from them that I can apply to life myself. Being able to meet with people and hear their stories and be available to them has been such a rewarding gift and so life changing, that all that other stuff, no more mohawks and all that, it's such a small price to pay.
(editors note: although she may not still have a mohawk, she is still totally punk as hell, and her band Subramanium has a 7" that just came out)

Q: What do you love about punk? What keeps you in it?

A: It's been a huge part of my life for about half of my life at this point. So, I don't really know another way. This is how I grew up. And I think that for most of us, it is the only way we could have survived, and to grow and blossom and become creative and work through the things that we see and experience in our lives. And while there can be contention between being a punk and doing social work in the criminal justice system, I think that it is this lens that I have developed in my punk community that led me here and has allowed me to make it here and be so moved to do this work.

What keeps me motivated? Part of it is community. These are my people. Despite some folks who have responded more rigidly to my work choices or have not done their peice to support me as a woman in the punk scene (you know who you are) the majority of the punks that I love are interested in my work and my music and my activisim and we are always looking for ways to work together on our new projects, new showspaces, new zines. Also, music is a huge peice. I grew up in a musical family and all of my family memebers are currently playing in several bands. For me, it is a viable outlet. It is sometimes one of the only accessible outlets. When therapy gets too expensive and close friends pull back, I have a totally constructive and acceptable venue to scream at the top of my lungs and everyone there wants to hear it! It is not intrusive or fucked up to scream it out in band practice or at shows, we're all in it together

sf zine fest

2008-07-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

Here I will be. With my new issue! of Doris 26!

Spooktober! shows!

2008-06-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

My new bassist is in another sweet band called Spooktober, which is two sweet 20yearold boys who play guitar and bass and sing about halloween and stuff, and a Casio keyboard plays the beats. I love them. You should go to their East coast shows if you are into that kind of thing and live out there. I am trying to help them book their tour. We are still looking for shows in Philly (july 17) and Richmond(July 19).
I'll post the rest of the shows when I get the more solid info.

upcoming events

2008-06-05T13:29:00.000-07:00

Reading Tour with Erick Lyle who'll be reading from his new amazing book
On The Lower Frequencies
I'll be reading old and new doris stuff.
June 11 Baltimore Red Emmas
June 12 DC Brian McKenzie Infoshop I think
June 13 NYC Bluestocking Books
June 14 Philly A Space
June 15 Brooklyn, Goodbye Blue Monday, on Broadway near DeKalb
June 16 Brattleboro
June 17 Boston Lucy Parsons
June 18 Providence RI
June 19 Amherst

then I'm going to be in SanFrancisco for the SF zine fair July 19-20. I'm going to be doing a speech/question and answer thing, so if you're going to be there are you have some questions you want me to talk about, may be you can tell me here, because I'm usually not very good at answering things when I'm put on the spot, unless I have time to think about it ahead of time.
xxoo

Chronic Pain zine - call for submissions

2008-05-13T20:02:00.000-07:00

(this is a call out for a zine that is going to be really great. It's not me who's putting it together, but I'm trying to write something for it.)

Please take part in my yet-to-be named Chronic Pain Zine project. I am looking for anyone interested in submitting writing or easy-to-reproduce visual art/comics on the subject and experience of Chronic Pain.

Personally, I'm not as interested in pain management (drugs, therapies, treatments) as in the social and emotional aspects of living with chronic pain. I want to hear about the way persistent pain impacts people's lives, relationships, and the way that they inhabit their bodies and communities. How has the pain experience informed how you identify yourself, how you feel about your body, and how you ask for help? In what way has pain pushed you toward change? Ideally this zine will be about support, sharing, and respecting what we've been through with pain. Below are some ideas I've brainstormed for pieces¦ anyone want to run with any of these topics?

- Asking for help in a Do-It-Yourself community
- Body Image / Identity and Chronic Pain
- Sex and Chronic Pain
- Chronic Pain and Introspection / Change
- Relationships and Chronic Pain
- Creativity and Chronic Pain
- Mental Health / Depression and the Pain Experience
- The Invisibility of Pain
- Upbringing / How were you raised to approach pain?
- Book Reviews / Chronic Pain Reading Guide
- Your ideas go here¦.

Additionally: are you a punk rock health care practitioner - or - a partner to a person in pain? What ideas and stories about care giving and support do you have to share?

This project and its time line are just taking shape but my goal is to have a finished first issue by the end Aug. in time for the Portland Zine Symposium. I love to hear from interested participants ASAP, and have extended the submission deadline to July 1st. Please repost, tell your friends, and pass this far and wide. You can contact me with comments, questions, or submissions: nevertwice@yahoo.com

tour etc

2008-04-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

So, does anyone on the East coast have a car or truck they'd want to lend me and Erick for our little East Coast tour in June? I know it's long shot, but just thought I'd ask.

what I have been reading: The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion
what I have been promoting: friendship dates
what I've been doing: eating salads made of flowers. edible food hike camptrip.
what I've been planning: song share, pond party cookout for Mid May.
what's a song share? it's when everyone picks a few good songs for singing together and then makes photocopies of the lyrics and then you all get together and learn the songs so you can sing songs together which is something that is so great to do.

scene not heard zine

2008-04-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

Call for Submissions

Scene Not Heard Zine
Sexism in Punk, Activist and Radical Communities
Is accepting submissions . . .

Some ideas (by no means limited to):
personal stories
art/creative writing/poetry
histories and institutional memories (stories about your scene/community)

body image
sexism and sexual harassment at activist gatherings
standing up to the patriarchy through art, organizing, music, zines etc.
violence/sexualized violence towards all genders
punk music and mosh pits: dismantling and reinforcing gender, patriarchy, sexualized violence, and expectations of manhood
sexism and sexual harassment in the activist community that formed in New Orleans after Katrina
'manarchism': who has access and who sets the group agenda
radicalism as a means of empowerment vs. scene cred dictating values and new social norms

I am looking for a wide-range of viewpoints and opinions. Queer/trans individuals, people of color, women and men and everyone and everything in between!

Email submissions/questions/ideas to: scenenotheard.zine@gmail.com
Please get them in by: July 1st

friends

2008-04-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

It's strange trying so hard to make new friends. I go downtown every day and sit. write letters. sit in the sun waiting for anyone I have even vaguely met to walk by. I talk loud. I tell stories. I come up with big plans and group things. like lets find jerseys with numbers and become a gang. a singing gang. ASC Athens Singing Club. I am looking for a keyboard player. I am looking for a motorcycle. I am looking for a life that is more than what is given. I am trying to make this life. more. but I want secrets. I want to know the hard behind the laughs. I want to know what drives us. what keeps us from being real. I want want want. always

e. coast tour

2008-04-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

I'm going on reading tour in June with Erick Lyle, (formally Iggy Scam) who has a new book coming out on Soft Skull Press called On The Lower Frequencies:The Secret Life of Cities, Hopefully this is what it will be:

June 11 Baltimore Red Emmas
June 12 DC the Black Cat
June 13 NYC Bluestocking Books
June 14 Philly A Space
June 15 Brooklyn, Goodbye Blue Monday, on Broadway near DeKalb
June 16 Brattleboro
June 17 Boston Lucy Parsons
June 18 Providence RI
June 19 Amherst

also, here a link to Ericks book
On The Lower Frequencies

zine about learning good consent

2008-04-06T12:44:00.000-07:00

I'm helping work on a zine about positive consent experiences. We really need people's stories and advice. Here is a link to the flyer. thanks. flyer

ohio

2008-04-06T12:28:00.001-07:00

Oh, Ohio. We thought we had found home real home. and then what happens? they are opening up power plants and remining everything for coal. Here, where most people don't own the minerals under thier land so the companies can come and take it all out from under you, wreck the water table. ruin everything.
so where? where now?

sobriety zine

2008-04-06T12:26:00.000-07:00

Call for Submissions

Being Sober
This is one of my favorite definitions of sober:
showing self-control
I know plenty traditionally "sober"/straightedge folks
that do all sorts of terrible self righteous
compulsive bullshit and plenty friends who drink and
are on top of their shit. I'm interested in people who
make the conscious decision to be present, responsive,
and accountable to themselves, their partners, their
family their community and communities at large. It's
up to you to decide what you need and can handle.

Having Fun
In my experience this responsibility is overwhelming
some times. Being sober can seem really constraining
when everyone seems to do things so easily when drunk.
things get awkward some times but I have learned how
to fuck, speak, listen, consent, dance, play, read,
socialize, scream, run from cops and be free since I
got sober 6 years ago. Right now I love being
supportive to my friends, reading autobiographies by
strong women of color, gardening and drinking
dumpstered tea.

What do you like to do?

I'm excited by your stories and comics about doing
what you love while being sober. This could be about
yr past, present or future exploits.

Submissions
send me yr submissions to
2921 Hilligass ave
Berkeley CA 94705

5 x5 1/4 format
or email them to emmaworkswell@yahoo.com and I'll make
em pretty

radical survivor asheville

2008-03-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

This is a new group starting up in Asheville that I think would be great if people got involved in.
radical survivor asheville

March 13, Seattle

2008-02-27T15:07:00.000-08:00

OK! update. I will be reading at Left Bank books in Seattle, March 13 at 7:00, hopefully with a couple other people - like Nealy from Mend My Dress.

study + friends

2008-02-24T19:45:00.001-08:00

I remembered, when I can't figure out how to get my head to work, study always helps. Active reading, taking notes, thinking hard about things outside myself.

I have been thinking about how much nicer it is when we tell eachother what we like about eachother. I seriously think hardly any of us get enough acknowledgement, and a lot of times we focus on the negative things about our friends, or if we think our friends are great, we compare ourselves to them and think we suck. but why? So many of us feel so lonely and unappreciated and self hating, so I want to recommend that we start practicing telling eachother what inspires us about eachother. a lot.

committment

2008-02-22T08:02:00.000-08:00

I just want to aknowledge how hard it is to do almost anything half the time. I think sometimes that people think that they are the only ones who struggle with motivation and despair and committment and getting shit done, but if you feel alone, you are not. It is so fucking hard to keep going and stay focused. Like, right now I am trying to start on this writing project, and I said I would write on it for 3 hours today, but I just scratch away and think of a million reasons why I can't write it, why I don't know enough and can't focus enough and don't write good enough and what if I get it wrong. And I just want to go work, do some mindless tasks. This is the struggle. to keep going despite it all.

books I need

2008-02-21T05:37:00.000-08:00

Hi! I am about to start working on my political autobiography, which sounds kind of weird and self-important, but it's really more about the political stuff that has been going on in my lifetime than about me. But I have a lot of research I need to do, so if anyone has books about these subjects that they don't want anymore, let me know. You can send them to pob 29 athens oh 45701:

Alternative Schools in the 70's
Sanctuary Movement
US intervention in Central America
bombing of Granada
Anti-Aparthied Movement + US Divestment from S.Africa
Reganomics + funding cuts for artists
Deep Ecology + Social Ecology vs Deep Ecology
Judi Bari
Co-op Movement in Minneapolis (from the 50's or whenever)
Love and Rage
ACT UP
Gurilla Girls
Riot Girl Movement
Self-Defense Movement
Sex Wars (anti-porn vs pro-erotic freedom or pro-sex)
Media Representation of social movements since the 80's
James Bay
Prarie Island
ARA
Punk (espcially 80's and 90's punk stuff)
Straight Edge Movement
Fetal Subjectivity
Rise of the Christian Right - especially about their tactics getting on school boards, etc.
Clinic Defense
Beginnings of the WTO, World Bank and IMF - or overviews of how all that developed
Identity Politics
Class Identity and the shrinking of US Middle class
Free Trade + US companies moving to Mexico, etc
500 Years of Resistance
Food Not Bombs
Zapatistas
Autonomen (I don't know how to spell it - German radicals)
Squatting in US
Anti-Mass
Zines (I don't want a bunch of zines, because I have tons, but maybe a book about them)
Crimethinc
War on Drugs
War on Terror
Incarceration of African-Americans + the Prison Industrial System
Iraq Wars

I know there's a lot I'm forgetting right now. It'll all come together better once I'm in the writing.
thanks!!!

Jazz Brunch

2008-02-19T09:43:00.000-08:00

Oh, Baltimore. Once upon a time there was a church that was falling apart and couldn't pay their bills, and had been involved in radical stuff since forever, and so they approached the Anarchist bookstore, Red Emma's, and asked if they would like to do community events in the big room in the church. So they helped fixed it up and they have events, even punk shows in there. But what I went to was Jazz Brunch, which I figured would just be a silly punky thing, and I learned a jazz song to sing, "My Cat Arnold", by Karen Mantler. Because I'd heard that if you brought an instrument you got $4 brunch instead of $7. But when I got there it was the sweetest, more commuinity kind of thing I'd ever really seen. It was punks at the door and serving the food, but it was all kinds of people. all ages and not just white. and there was a real jazz band playing that was two kids who were probably about 15, and three older people. And the line for brunch was out the door. there were big tables, lots of them, and a girl with long dreads and a good loud voice who was a welcomer, and welcomed each section of the line, explaining how it worked. The welcomer made it feel so welcoming! So much less confusing and more fun, less alienating. I wish all punk/anarchist spaces would remember about being welcoming, and making a point to really do stuff like that.
Jazz Brunch. I love Jazz Brunch!

accountability

2008-02-17T09:46:00.000-08:00

A lot of people lately have been asking me what I think accountability is. I have recently been trying to demand accountability from two people who are assaulters. One of them is an ex-good friend of mine, who was totally clueless about the fact that he assaulted someone - he thought it was consentual but was totally willing to accept the survivors experience. I don't think that in his heart he really sees himself as a perpetraitor though.

I think everyone needs to hold perpetraitors accountable, and that if the person isn't doing serious, ongoing work to learn and change, that they need to go to counciling. Friends who are trying to help rehabilitate the perpetraitor need to consistantly demand that they go to counciling.

In a couple instances lately, perpatrators I have known have gone to counciling that was specifically for rehabiliting perpatrators, and these councilors usually deal with people who have been court ordered to go there. I wish these worked, but I feel like these councilors have downplayed the importance of more subtle forms of abuse and consent, and have made the perpatrators feel like what they did was no big deal.

I have gotten a lot of criticism about the tactic of ostricizing perpetraitors from communities, and a lot of talk about how the perpetraitor is not going to change if people aren't staying friends with them. I believe that ostricization is a powerful tool. I believe that people are capable of making fundamental changes in themselves, but I have seen over and over again that many people are not willing to make these changes until their lives become too fucking uncompfortable for them to avoid dealing with it. Ostricization makes people uncomfortable. Friends of the perpetrator who believe that they can help the perpetraitor change need to be consist and active in pushing for accountability and change. there is a fine line between being an enabler and helping someone change.

I expect friends to make demands on the perpetraitor, to talk to the people in the larger community about what they are doing, what progress is being made, and to ask the larger community what expectations and demands they have.

I have also heard a lot of talk about "what is community", and how we don't really have one so how can anyone be held accountable. I think this is bullshit. Community doesn't have to be super tangeble to be real. If you work with someone, if you go to the same places as them (shows, coffee shops), if you live in the same neighborhood or town or even city, all those things count. Community accountability is about breaking out of the "none of my business" mentality that has allowed abuse to happen and contiuing happening. It is all of our responsibilities to speak out and stop abuse.

baltimore and Seattle reading

2008-02-13T10:09:00.000-08:00

I'll be in Baltimore doing a zine reading thing at Red Emmas bookstore on Feb 18, at 7pm. and in Seattle on March 9th I'm not sure what time.

mrr column 3

2008-02-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

i forgot to post this one.

What was it that brought you into punk? was it just the music or that you couldn't fit in. Was it so much anger inside of you that had no way out? Was it the emptiness of pop music and looking for something more. Was it rebellion, pure and simple? Was it because you had a punk crush? Was it because it was cool? What has it grown into? Was it because punk was the only thing that could keep you alive.
What brought you into it, and what are you going to do now? The reasons we start aren't always enough to hold us steady. We have to constantly rethink what we want from where we are, and how are we going to move forward, once we have treaded water long enough, once we have learned how to swim. We have to recreate what punk means in our lives so we don't just turn our backs on it when we grow.
There is so much pushing on us, so much capitalist bullshit standard beauty crap what makes us worthwhile what shit our parents shoved at us what shit our schools did, and the magazine adds and the shitty music and lack of culture or patriarchial culture, and shoved at us "why don't you smile", and meaningless debates where they don't even begin to ask the right questions, and lovelessness and alienation and despair.
So yeah, it makes sense to define ourselves as other. as against all that regardless of whether or not we know what we're for. But I want to know, someday, what you want to create. I want to know what's the revolution we're gonna make? Because it's Us vs. Them? but who is them exactly? Is it my 91 year old grandma? who was talking to me about the gay rodeo. She said "I used to think gay people deserved to die, but now I just can't imagine what my problem was!"
Is them my mom, who never made it out of the suburbs, and couldn't figure out a way to resist beyond school boardes and unshaved armpits, and teaching us daughters that we could do anything. who it took 13 years to get out of an abusive relationship, and by then it was too late, the aftershocks killed her.
Is them my older sister, events coordinator at Dartmouth college, who is too afraid of the world to let her kids play outside, and whose method of survival requires holding tight to forgetting and denial.
Is them the kids who aren't punk enough or the kids who are punker than thou. the ones who don't care about anything other than drinking and fucking shit up, or the ones who are so self righteous in their politics you can't even talk to them. Is it the old punks for leaving or the young ones for repeating the same actions and making the same mistakes. And what is the difference between critique and infighting?
In Andrea Dworkin's book Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant, she says "I learned never to ignore the reality of power pure and simple. I also learned that one could get a bunch of people to do something brave or new or rebellious, but if it didn't come from their deepest hearts they could not maintain the honor of their commitment... nor can rhetoric create in people a sustained determination to win".
What is the revolution we're going to make? What is deepest in our hearts? I know that sometimes all we can do is figure out a way to stay alive, but after that, what is it we're feeling and what are doing just because it's been set up for us to do. I want us to think hard and often about what it is we're trying to create, what is deepest in our hearts, and not just what we hate or what's simple.
A friend of mine recently came out to me as being not an anarchist. She said she thought people were inherently lazy, and I know I live in my own little bubble of denial in my head, but I cant believe that's true. I think so many of us work really hard in a world that is so against us. I've seen so many people work hard just to live. people doing the hard work of surviving incest, surviving rape, surviving partners who tell them they're shit, surviving being beaten, being ignored, being not believed. And if we are doing this hard work, there's got to be a deep desire in the rest of us.
Right now. I want you to think seriously about what kind of world you want, and how we can take steps to get there. I want us to talk with our friends about real things, and cut the bullshit. Like if you talk shit about women, what are the reasons behind it? what is the benefit for you? what do you think might be the actual real ways it hurts us. If you dismiss people who are trying to change the world, I want you to challenge your dismissal, and to think seriously about what it is you don't like about their ideas or tactics, and what it is you think should be done differently, and how can you work to make that happen?
It's time to work hard. I want to uncover our secrets and our lost abilities. I want us to stop making fun of each other. I want us to feel deeply and to love and to learn to trust our bodies and to learn which people we can trust and who is trying to trick us.
I want us to stop worrying so much about whether or not we feel like we belong, stop trying to prove ourselves. Nothing is comfortable in this world even if we can find bits and pieces of it, bits and pieces of community. I want us to be able to agree to disagree on things. I want us to encourage a diversity of identities and a diversity of tactics. I want us to study. There is an embarrassing lack of political knowledge and shallow political rhetoric that doesn't sustain us. I want us to embrace challenge, and to fight for what we belive, and to stand up for each other, to learn how to live in different worlds. I want to sew it all together, the ways we fight and create and think, not a single thread all mashed together in fake unity, but a net of identity, culture, resistance, community, and family, to catch the ones who are falling. to break their fall.
At the Black Bear, Butcher Wolf, Red Herring show, Chris Somerville from Black Bear says into the microphone, "This song is about the problems that arise when people are divided from the natural world." and if the basement had been packed and the amps had been louder, the force of the music could have pushed us all together and the violin bow as a needle could have sewn up the divisions and the revolution would have streamed out through everything. As it was, I could only stand there with my hand on my heart, trying to hold it in.

doris zine blog

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do you know any stores that carry zines?

I won't be working with Microcosm anymore

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me and my horses

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teaching workshop at Queer Influx, columbus ohio

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Polyamory and Patriarchy Zine Questionnaire

community accountability zine call for submissions

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Microcosm

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Class Study Group

sick zine, call for submissions

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Ladyfest Syracuse NY

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Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism, by Alison Piepmeier

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the revolution starts at home zine

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learning good consent zine

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