Across the hills to Sheffield Zinefest

This weekend I dipped my toe in zinesterland for the first time. by going to the Sheffield Zinefest.

It's a bit weird, saying that, as I've been standing on the borders of the place for about 20 years! Whether mine or my flatmate's music zines, the trashy thing for people in my uni department that I sometimes wrote for, the amusing reputation I got in the 90s with the then writer-about-queer-zines for BCN, or a squillion bits and pieces I've written and sometimes drawn for BCN and other bi magazines... it's all been in places of, so to speak, intersectional zine culture. A place where we are all queer and here is a zine about being queer. A place where we are all feminist and here is a distro table of the fine work of grrrl zinesters. I'd never just gone to a place where people who get it about the seductive power of ink and paper congregate.

And there are two things I need to write: the day out, and trying to keep up the little fillip of ink and paper energy it's given me. There's going to be a section heading or two, you know there will... and maybe even a cut-tag. Here they come...

A splendid day out

BCN 117

Well, it's back from the print shop.... yet again they sent it to the wrong place and so it is a couple of weeks behind when it could have been going into the post. I am so not amused you can hardly imagine, but I think if it was raining today then as I walked down the street the raindrops would turn to steam as them met my head. It's almost less that they sent it to somewhere arbitrary instead of the delivery address stated, more how blase they were when challenged about it.

Four alternative print quotes sourced so far. If I can move it for anything like the same print bill, I'm moving. Most other print houses also have tracking on parcels so you can find out if things have been delivered to a randomly chosen stranger.

Future History

Too little was going on for LGBT HM, so I cracked and made a bisexual history thing. It's a twitter feed, and there'll be a page on BiMedia soon to go with it. @bisexualhistory - my aim with it is that one day I'll have a "bi thing from history" for every day of the year.

It may require me to organise the Smallest BiFest Ever one December 25th to complete the calendar...