Ladyfest Auckland!

As part of the weekend’s Ladyfest, Cherry Bomb organised a zines & things market day! Saturday’s weather was horrible, but impressive numbers of people turned up to Cross Street Studios to check things out anyway.

I took along a table of Moon Rocket leftovers (shhh, don’t look at that link, it’s broken! A replacement site is coming very soon). Other tables were filled by the Audio Foundation cd shop, Cherry Bomb Comics, Alex (Instant Intensity), Kim & Charlie from Wellington (Pinktricity & a distro table), Mini & 10-22-38 Astoria & friends, Radical Youth & Freedom Fighters, a girl who made jewellery out of buttons, & a music distro. There was also a reading space with some of the Cherry Bomb reading library, a free box & space for workshops.

I took a short workshop about zine structures and bindings, and showed people how to fold bits of paper up and sew them together. Other workshops included a discussion between Cherry Bomb and Wellington’s new Space Thing (joined partway through by The Girly Project) about DIY social spaces; “Worse Than Queer”, about race in alternative scenes, and a guitar workshop by Brenda.

I picked up some new local zines:

• Mini the typewriter special edition. Mini used to be in the Moon Rocket catalogue, but I hadn’t seen this issue. It’s pocket-sized and full of typewriter trivia, cut & paste art and a hot typewriter centrefold. Email hey_tess at hotmail dotcom if you want a copy.
• Two Fifteenths is a thin volume of sweet short fiction subtitled “A pair of stories by Cara Pollock, featuring two boys, some fish, a rather burnt birthday cake, the sky before dawn, and pictures of everything through from arsonists to zebras”. Cara can be contacted through her website, albatroi.net, which doesn’t have details of this zine but does have other stories she’s written.
• Drawn Out Lives: Collections from Suburbia by Shen Kim was made for an AUT 3rd year illustration exhibition, and is a visual exploration of suburbia (Botany Downs!). Email kimm.shen at gmail dotcom.
• Adventures Close To Home: a zine about The Slits was written by Melissa from Cherry Bomb – a little while ago but it’s new to me. The zine is partly about The Slits – their music & reputation & how their music was received when it was new, and partly about how the music of The Slits (& later bands) has had a place in Melissa’s life. Tobi Vail gets some of the fanzine love too. Contact Melissa through the Cherry Bomb website.
• 10-22-38 Astoria was the text copied on the first photocopy, and now it’s the name of a photocopy fanzine. Contents include copy-related YouTube recommendations, research into the question of whether photocopying your face is dangerous, the philanthropist who invented the photocopier, what it means when you dream of copiers, & more! My copy came in a limited edition envelope with a photocopier sticker on the front. Contact 10-22-38 Astoria on MySpace or hey_tess at hotmail dotcom.

Filed under: Local Events, Local Publications

Side Stream

Side Stream is an Auckland-based anthology of “poetry from the fringe” that is published and distributed freely every second month.

I’ve picked up copies of previous issues at Cherry Bomb (which currently isn’t a physical shop) and at Revel café in K Road, though I haven’t yet tracked down issue #12, which came out last week according to the myspace page. You can distribute copies in your own area, & if you’re lucky you might find a copy in Berlin, Dunedin, Alaska, Christchurch or Melbourne.

If you’re a poet, check out their submission guidelines – poems for the next issue are due on 15 March.

Filed under: Local Publications

Zines in Cross Street

Yesterday was Cross Street Carnival! The street was closed off for the day, and there was music, aerial acrobatics, performance art, general carnival mayhem and a Craftwerk market happening in the middle of it all.

This was the first time Cherry Bomb Comics had set up shop since closing their physical space in New North Road. They had a little table crammed with their usual fine selection of comics and zines, and were next to another table advertising Ladyfest Auckland, which is happening next weekend. Check out the websites for more details, but especially check out the Zine Fair happening next Saturday! Cross Street Studios will be full of zine merchants, and there will be workshops and zine-related things happening. I will have a table of Moon Rocket leftovers, and will be taking a workshop on zine structures and binding in the middle of the day. Come along if you’re in the neighbourhood, it will be fun.

I picked up some local publications from the carnival yesterday:

• Are We There Yet?: An overland travel story is by Fran H, who travelled from the UK to New Zealand overland and wrote about it in this comic, which she published in time for last year’s Wellington Zinefest. Fran tells travel stories that think about the politics & environmental impact of travelling, and appreciate the details of new places.
• Your Weight in Gold by Annabel Henderson Morrell is a little zine/chapbook of sexy, smart poems about relationships & the death of a friend.
• It’s A Zine Life is a little story told in photos of a plastic bogan doll and his adventures in Mount Maunganui

The first two I bought from Cherry Bomb (check with them if you want copies). The third was a free zine I picked up from a table selling crafts – I don’t have contact details ubt they might be at the next Auckland Craftwerk.

Filed under: Local Events, Local Publications

Hello!

I’m going to begin this blog in the time-honoured zine tradition of apologising for how long it’s taken. The last Small Print festival was in the middle of 2005. Now, two and a half years have gone by, 2008 is well underway and all my talk of organising more events and putting together a decent website has come to nothing much.

If this was really an introduction to a zine, maybe I’d explain how life got in the way and promise to elaborate in the cryptically-typewritten articles within, but this is something else: the Small Print blog!

I’ll be using this website to write about what’s happening with the next Small Print event(s), but also to tell you about other things happening in New Zealand related to self-publishing, and to write about zines, comics, small-press books and other small- or tiny-scale publications being made in New Zealand. If you want me to write about your project, send me a copy (Moira Clunie, P O Box 7754, Wellesley Street, Auckland, New Zealand) or email me (moira at this domain name).

Other people might write here too. I’m Moira, one of the organisers of Small Print. I write Child That Mind zine, edit a poetry zine called Woven, and have made various other zines & books over the years. I used to run Moon Rocket Distro, but that’s grounded for now.

I hope this website & Small Print will help connect up small press writers and readers. Meanwhile, please excuse the minimalist WordPress layout and general under-construction-ness of the site – I’ll be adding more about past Small Press events and current publishing projects over the coming weeks.

Filed under: Small Print Updates