zines, again! (and recs, quotes, tweets)
Happy Monday, all. Today we’re going to talk about zines again.
In this newsletter:
News
Zines
Similes/metaphors I’ve read recently and loved
Tweets
NEWS
I wrote an e-book!
Publishing Poems: An Easy Guide is exactly that: an easy guide to publishing poems. It’s 46 pages in total and made up of eight chapters:
The Cover Letter
The Bio
Submitting for the First Time
Formatting Your Poems
Submission Fees
Getting Paid for Your Writing
Journals that Respond Quickly
Applying to MFA Programs
I’ve learned so much from being a writer and editor these past few years, and I wanted to share my insights for those who are just starting to publish—hopefully, your learning curve is less steep than mine.
Anyways, you can buy it for $10 on my website.
I have a reading!
I’m reading with other really skilled writers this Friday at 8EST/5PST! Anyone’s welcome to join the Zoom. I’m really grateful to be included.
Okay, that’s it. Thanks for bearing with me.
Now, what’s a zine?
Great question! And one that these writers articulate far better than I ever could:
Zines are commonly cheaply-made and priced publications, often in black and white, mass-produced via a photocopier, and bound with staples. The accessibility of production allows zines to be a tool for community activism and empowerment […] [or] artistic vehicles for self-expression, social activism, and political criticism.
-Alexander Campos, Zines+ and the World of ABC No Rio
A zine offers a window into someone else’s fascinations without the clinical or academic distance that often comes in books and newspapers.
-Joe Biel, Make a Zine
So, what makes a zine distinct from a magazine, or a literary journal, or a chapbook? you ask.
From what I’ve learned (through much research, because I am intense and obsessive and can never ~just chill~): What differentiates a zine from any other printed publication is 1) it comes from a desire to build community, not profit and 2) it’s incredibly D-I-Y: it is put together from start to finish by its maker.
Indeed, the goal isn’t to make money, and zines never cost more than $10—and rarely ever even that. Zinesters write about what they’re interested in or can’t stop thinking about and hope to find a community of others with similar obsessions.
I, for instance, am obsessed with reading authors’ letters. That’s how the zine The Best Gay Shit Virginia Woolf Sent to Vita Sackville-West came to be. (And you’re welcome to print it out for free—just make sure to set your printer properties to “fit to paper” to ensure the spacing’s right.)
And here are some other zines I made this year—most of which I gave away to friends and family or left in little free libraries around town.
And here are some others:
Amid a crazy year, zinemaking has been a major source of joy for me.
And, if this interests you, you can find out a little more here:
And here are the books I have about zines and bookmaking:
As always, I’ve been reading quite a bit—and I’m always on the lookout for good similes and metaphors.
Here are some recent ones I liked enough to jot down.
Similes:
Cinch my love like a lit wick between your fingers.
-Amy Woolard
The moon white & wet as a bone showing / Through a wound.
-Amy Woolard
We want our hearts wrung out like rags & ground down / to Georgia dust.
-Yusef Komunyakaa
We were best friends—we knew that—but we didn’t talk about how the borders of our bodies had started to blur. In Classical Latin, costa meant “rib,” which, later, in Medieval Latin, came to mean “edge” or “coast,” the side of a stretch of land. We were walking the edge of a boundary neither of us would name. That night, her body slept against mine like the Atlantic against the Carolina coast.
-Julia Koets
Metaphors:
Shadows lifted
from the streets, late February turning our hunger
into plums, ripe in our palms.
-Norma Liliana Valdez
A tongue to lick the salt
from your upper lip, the rosary of sweat
risen on your chest.
-Jessica Jacobs
If this summer is a body, / let me be its tongue.
-Jessica Jacobs
Sunlight throws / scythes against the afternoon.
-Yusef Komunyakaa
And, since you’re already here, some great tweets:
That’s it for today. Thanks for being here.
Hope you have a great week.
-DB
Linktr.ee