Weekly Recommendations, Week 44: Retch-a-Sketch blog

I'm too big of a fan of Keet's artwork and writing not to recommend Keet's sketch blog, Retch-a-Sketch, which I finally (just recently) took the time to visit. If you are not yet familiar with Keet and her work, apart from checking out her blog, you should check out her zine, Echo! Echo!. After you browse her blog, read her zine, and become a fan (which I'm sure you will), support Keet's work by sending her some dollars and getting something in return. In other words, buy stuff from her. Apart from that, I'm not sure what else to say. Keet's work speaks for itself, right?

Weekly Recommendations, Week 41: Flora's Forum

Many months ago on this blog I recommended an up and coming magazine called, Greenwoman. What you may not know is that there is a great little group blog affiliated with this magazine called, Flora's Forum. It's still in it's infancy and has yet to really blossom into what it could become, but there is still plenty of good content already there to be found. It's a blog for those interested in connecting to nature through gardening, in taking care of the planet, in living simply and doing-it-yourself, and in expressing these sentiments through all forms of art. Additionally, this blog is not just for reading but for participating, and so in order to facilitate this, writers, gardeners, and nature lovers the world over are invited to contribute. If, after browsing through the site, you decide that Flora's Forum might be a place for you to express yourself, by all means contact the editor. I intend to contribute eventually, but have been distracted by too many other things. I will join the community eventually. You can count on that.

Weekly Recommendations, Week 35: Responding to Mail

I used to write letters. Actually, I still do, just not at the rate that I once did and not at the rate that I  would prefer. Embarrassingly enough, I have been letting my mail pile up for a long time now, and the duration I go without responding to letters I receive keeps getting longer and longer. I don't really want it to be this way, but for whatever reason, I just haven't made it a priority to respond in a timely manner to the letters I receive. It's disgraceful as far as I'm concerned. I'm not saying that everyone who receives letters should respond immediately - we all have our busy lives with plenty of other stuff going on - I'm just saying that I would like to do better at it. I greatly appreciate the mail that I receive from fellow zinesters and zine-interested folks, and I love the connections I've made with people all over the world. I consider my pen pals to be my good friends and confidants, and I really want to maintain the associations that I have with them. However, I have not been great at writing letters lately. Perhaps I've never really been great at it, but these days it's gotten worse. I intend to mend that though. I will do better. I am making it a point to. One day soon, I'm going to sit down and write responses to all the mail I've received over the past year or more that I have yet to respond to, and then (mark my words) I will keep up on it. I recommend that you do the same. The connections we make in life are of upmost importance, and it is imperative that we maintain these relationships. Our lives are enriched by our friendships (whether they develop in person or through the postal system), and in turn, our correspondence, communication, and attentiveness can enrich the lives of others. To get a letter, write a letter, and if you get a letter, write a letter back. To those who have written to me lately and are anxiously awaiting a reply, I promise you that a response is on it's way. And to those who haven't written to me in a while (or ever), I'd love to hear from you. I promise that it won't take me eons to write you back...not anymore anyway.

"shout it out, shatter your lungs"

I have a couple things to share with you on this rainy, September weekend.

First off, a prolific zine writer and one of my long-time pen pals, Laura-Marie (of Eric and Laura-Marie Magazine and Functionally Ill), recently started a zine review blog, which can be found at http://lauramarieszinereviews.blogspot.com/ Laura-Marie is passionate about zine publishing and the reviews she includes in her zines are always interesting to read, so I'm sure the review blog will be equally great. If you're interested in seeing your zine reviewed on her blog, email her for her mailing address at robotmad@gmail.com. She's interested in reviewing most any zine except for music zines.

The second thing you should check out is Chelsea Lincoln's interview on the Our Hen House podcast. Chelsea (another long-time pen pal) is the author of Flavor Vegan blog and was recently a speaker and panelist at the Vida Vegan Con in Portland, OR. In the interview Chelsea talks about being vegan, her activism and how activism can mean something different for different people, and fat acceptance among other things. Chelsea is extremely articulate and passionate, and the interview is fun to listen to, so check it out, okay!?

"there's a violence in everyone"

After a several month long hiatus, I am back to posting zine reviews at Syndicated Zine Reviews. I didn’t mean to take such a long break. I just got a little swamped with other things. However, the zines kept piling up, and I started feeling like a jerk and a lazy bum for not getting around to writing reviews for the nice folks who were kind enough to send me their zines, so I finally decided to get on it. You should visit the site and check out all the great postings that are updated regularly (and not just by me, of course). If nothing else, it provides proof that the zine scene is still alive and well, and that all those naysayers and nincompoops that keep on saying print is dead are just dead wrong.

Additionally, I received a postcard from a zine friend a few weeks ago that is just too awesome not to share with someone, so here it is.

How cool is that?

Greenwoman Magazine: A Literary Garden

The long-awaited, premiere issue of Greenwoman Magazine is finally out! After a few delays, numerous headaches, and some minor miracles (you can read all about it on the blog), Sandra finally has an issue of her new magazine completed and ready for dissemination. And it's fantastic! The first thing I noticed was just how packed with writing it is. This isn't your typical mainstream magazine all bogged down with ads and filler. There is real content in this thing. Stuff you'd actually want to read. There are several columnists (myself included) covering a variety of topics including the praying mantis, book reviews, growing poppies, and what it really means to go green. Some of the main articles discuss things like eating organic food, raising chickens, and the politics of seeds and seed saving. Also included is an interview with fiction writer, Carleen Brice, and a biography of Indian plant guru, Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose. And even that's not it! Several more pages are filled with art, comics, poetry, short fiction, etc. I haven't actually read the whole thing yet, but so far my favorite is a short piece about one woman's obsession with "stealing" native plants and seeds. There is great talent all throughout this magazine thanks to Sandra's keen eyes and ears and her refusal to settle for mediocrity, which leads me to believe that it will be a big hit, especially among the crowd that is not satisfied gushing over the usual pap.
To learn more about Greenwoman Magazine visit http://www.greenwomanmagazine.com/
To order a single issue or buy a subscription, go here.
Sandra also offers an online version - the "green" version of Greenwoman Magazine - for a reasonable price.

"all our fears fall on deaf ears"

Pen pals come and go, that's just the nature of the zine world. In the nearly 14 years that I've been doing zines, I've written to and received letters from hundreds of people. Most of these folks I hear from once or twice and that's it. Others will exchange letters with me for a few months or maybe even a few years, and then they'll disappear. A small handful of pen friends have stuck with me for many years and will probably be around for years to come (they're the ones I cherish the most, of course). Who knows why some pen pals don't last or why they disappear? "Life" is probably the best answer. People get busy. Stuff gets in the way. New things come along, and we lose touch. It's no big deal, really. Like I said, it's the nature of the beast. However, there are a few that I do miss, and I often wish we could have stayed in touch. Then there is that small handful of old pen friends with particularly interesting parting stories.
One such story took place nearly a decade ago. I had a pen pal named, Nikki Atwell. She ordered zines from me and sent me mix tapes in return. Some of the songs on the mix tapes were her own that she had recorded herself. I don't think our exchanges went on for too long, and at some point I stopped hearing from her. I didn't think that much of it at the time, until many months later when I received a letter from Nikki's parents. Included in the letter was a funeral program. Apparently, Nikki had died in a car accident several months earlier, and her parents were going through her address book, sending out announcements to anyone she may have known. I guess I didn't know her too well, but I still felt like it was a major loss.
The reason I bring that story up now is because recently another one of my pen friends died. His name was Tim Scannell, and he was an older man who had been doing mail art for many years. I had only been exchanging letters with him for about 18 months. I knew of his cancer and that he was receiving home hospice care, but I was still a bit shocked to receive this letter from his wife:
It was kind of her to give me the news, even though we didn't know each other too well. Of course, all of this (along with my general preoccupation with death) made me wonder: what will happen if/when I die? Will someone send letters to my pen pals to let them know that I have passed on or will they just be left hanging, wondering why I haven't written back? It makes me think I should keep an updated address book just in case.
Another recent letter came from a pen pal who is still alive today, but who apparently won't be exchanging letters with me any longer for reasons I don't quite understand. His letters have often been a bit cryptic, and this one is no exception. Along with notifying me that he had closed his PO Box, he offered no alternate return address. Apparently, Plastic Bucket is moving on to bigger and better things. Regardless, if you're out there Mr. Bucket, please feel free to write again anytime. And as for pen friends near and far, old and new, be in touch - you know I always love hearing from you.