One question that's cropped up many times in my 20-something years of bi activism and bi volunteering is this:
Should bisexual and bisexuality be spelled with hyphens, as bi-sexual and bi-sexuality?
I say, down with the hyphen! Two reasons:
1) We don't hyphenate homo-sexuality or hetero-sexuality.
2) Generally
when words get hyphenated like that it's because they aren't real words
or are just getting accepted into English as a single word (think of
old films where to indicate the passage of time they have a flipping
calendar with "TO-DAY IS" on it -- or how early on people tended to
write email as e-mail). As bisexuality is real and definitely not
something invented earlier this week, I think the hyphen sends out all
the wrong signals on that front too.
I wrote this in a thread somewhere else but thought it was worth copying over here :)
Friday, 30 May 2014
Friday, 23 May 2014
England swings Right
With almost all the council election results in (there seem to be far fewer seats up than in 2010 which I'm a bit puzzled by) we've got a fair idea of the outcome of this year's May council elections, over which to ruminate wildly while waiting for the European election count this Sunday.
Across England the shift in seats is rightwards: towards the fear of your neighbour and the promise of a "better yesterday"-ism from Tory to UKIP, and similarly toward a more authoritarian, monocultural society in shifting from Liberal to Green.
Labour have picked up seats but their vote seems to have stalled. Like some of the county council seat results last year, when looking ward by ward at different councils today I kept finding find someone had got in not because Labour support has risen but because the voters seeking to oust them have shuffled between other parties and the famed 'split opposition' aspect of First Past The Post has done its work.
Across England the shift in seats is rightwards: towards the fear of your neighbour and the promise of a "better yesterday"-ism from Tory to UKIP, and similarly toward a more authoritarian, monocultural society in shifting from Liberal to Green.
Labour have picked up seats but their vote seems to have stalled. Like some of the county council seat results last year, when looking ward by ward at different councils today I kept finding find someone had got in not because Labour support has risen but because the voters seeking to oust them have shuffled between other parties and the famed 'split opposition' aspect of First Past The Post has done its work.
Monday, 19 May 2014
Chwarae Teg
Fair play to the BNP*, normally when I get a bit of paper through my letterbox with racism on it, it's from the Labour Party.
Hopefully despite going for the same values as Manchester Labour, Griffin will nonetheless be out on his arse come Sunday.
* not a phrase that comes easily
Hopefully despite going for the same values as Manchester Labour, Griffin will nonetheless be out on his arse come Sunday.
* not a phrase that comes easily
Saturday, 17 May 2014
My speech for the Manchester IDAHOBIT vigil today
IDAHO. IDAHOT. And now IDAHOBIT.
Why ram in the B, people ask. It is controversial, even with the international IDAHOBIT committee.
In Australia today there's a film festival to mark IDAHOBIT. In their publicity they have said it is an LGBT event, challenging homophobia and transphobia and a celebration of lesbian, gay and transgender life.
Colleagues from the equivalents of BiPhoria down under have challenged this, not surprisingly. Is the B in that LGBT just there to make up the numbers?
And they were told: biphobia is just a subset of homophobia, it doesn't need mentioning.
I understand how people come to say that - it has long been the accepted idea of bisexuality. Half gay, half the oppression. Growing up and coming out into queer culture 20 or so years ago it was the received wisdom that I received too.
We didn't know better because bi voices had not reached that critical mass. And that connects to the wider world issues that IDAHOBIT draws to our attention, because then we similarly just couldnt know what was happening for queers in other nations.
And just as we have started thanks to the internets to learn of how things may be good or bad abroad, we have come to understand a lot more of life here in the UK too, and to have research on bi life rather than just the odd bit of anecdote.
Because when we started to learn from one another, it all got a bit more frightening.
Across Europe, 50% of lesbians and gay men are out at work. Fifty percent. That's great! Except... when we think of the maths adding up to 100. That means 50% aren't, often because they don't feel it would be safe or wise.
But then: only 27% of bi women are out at work
And 14% of bi men.
86% of the men in my community keeping themselves in the closet because of prejudice in the workplace, even in countries like ours where the law offers some kind of protection.
Just yesterday I got an email to BiPhoria from someone who had sought support at their LGBT staff network, "employee at national law firm... Weird how lgbt groups, like mine at my work can make me feel less included than not having one at all." Because biphobia comes from inside the gay community too.
Three years ago a report on queer people's health found one in five bi women rated their health as fair or worse than that. For gay and straight women it was one in ten.
When it came to their mental health, four per cent of straight women reported a long term illness. 12% of lesbians. But 21% of bi women.
And the statistics on women who experience rape, physical violence and stalking: straight 35%, lesbian 44%, bi 61%.
Not that 35% is a number any of us can be happy with.
Double the violent abuse. Five times the levels of mental health struggles.
So biphobia, it's not just a milder version of homophobia. A Manchester Labour councillor told me a year or so ago, bisexuals aren't part of LGBT because they don't experience oppression. The facts just don't bear that belief out.
And yet, this isn't that the world is getting worse. It is, in places, as the voting in Eurovision last weekend showed sometimes it can feel like the world is becoming more polarised for or against us. We have to stop and remember 20, 30, 40 years ago it didn't seem as polarised because it was even more one-sided. Slowly the tide of history is flowing our way even if sometimes it ebbs and flows
So, thank you for inviting me, it's a slightly scary privilege to speak alongside some of the colleagues I am here with today, and thank you for standing with us in the ongoing fight with homophobia, biphobia and transphobia
Why ram in the B, people ask. It is controversial, even with the international IDAHOBIT committee.
In Australia today there's a film festival to mark IDAHOBIT. In their publicity they have said it is an LGBT event, challenging homophobia and transphobia and a celebration of lesbian, gay and transgender life.
Colleagues from the equivalents of BiPhoria down under have challenged this, not surprisingly. Is the B in that LGBT just there to make up the numbers?
And they were told: biphobia is just a subset of homophobia, it doesn't need mentioning.
I understand how people come to say that - it has long been the accepted idea of bisexuality. Half gay, half the oppression. Growing up and coming out into queer culture 20 or so years ago it was the received wisdom that I received too.
We didn't know better because bi voices had not reached that critical mass. And that connects to the wider world issues that IDAHOBIT draws to our attention, because then we similarly just couldnt know what was happening for queers in other nations.
And just as we have started thanks to the internets to learn of how things may be good or bad abroad, we have come to understand a lot more of life here in the UK too, and to have research on bi life rather than just the odd bit of anecdote.
Because when we started to learn from one another, it all got a bit more frightening.
Across Europe, 50% of lesbians and gay men are out at work. Fifty percent. That's great! Except... when we think of the maths adding up to 100. That means 50% aren't, often because they don't feel it would be safe or wise.
But then: only 27% of bi women are out at work
And 14% of bi men.
86% of the men in my community keeping themselves in the closet because of prejudice in the workplace, even in countries like ours where the law offers some kind of protection.
Just yesterday I got an email to BiPhoria from someone who had sought support at their LGBT staff network, "employee at national law firm... Weird how lgbt groups, like mine at my work can make me feel less included than not having one at all." Because biphobia comes from inside the gay community too.
Three years ago a report on queer people's health found one in five bi women rated their health as fair or worse than that. For gay and straight women it was one in ten.
When it came to their mental health, four per cent of straight women reported a long term illness. 12% of lesbians. But 21% of bi women.
And the statistics on women who experience rape, physical violence and stalking: straight 35%, lesbian 44%, bi 61%.
Not that 35% is a number any of us can be happy with.
Double the violent abuse. Five times the levels of mental health struggles.
So biphobia, it's not just a milder version of homophobia. A Manchester Labour councillor told me a year or so ago, bisexuals aren't part of LGBT because they don't experience oppression. The facts just don't bear that belief out.
And yet, this isn't that the world is getting worse. It is, in places, as the voting in Eurovision last weekend showed sometimes it can feel like the world is becoming more polarised for or against us. We have to stop and remember 20, 30, 40 years ago it didn't seem as polarised because it was even more one-sided. Slowly the tide of history is flowing our way even if sometimes it ebbs and flows
So, thank you for inviting me, it's a slightly scary privilege to speak alongside some of the colleagues I am here with today, and thank you for standing with us in the ongoing fight with homophobia, biphobia and transphobia
Friday, 16 May 2014
Why the Greens wouldn't get my second vote under AV
As a vaguely unaligned lefty voter back in the late 80s and early 90s I wandered between Plaid Cymru, the Greens and the Liberals. If you're of the left and grow up in a Labour heartland you rapidly learn how little care for anyone or anything but their own self-interest Labour have, so they weren't ever a serious contender.
Back then the Green Party looked like a plausible alternative to vote for. Indeed I've argued that if we were starting our political system from scratch in the UK, with parties based on the key issues of the coming century rather than the vested financial self-interest politics of the old century, the two main parties would be the Liberals on the left and the Greens on the right (and no doubt UKIP as a third party to soak up the ever present blame-someone-else vote).
The trouble is as they've gained the proverbial oxygen of publicity the Greens look less and less appealing.
There was Iraq, obviously. Before the 2003 invasion the Greens stood alongside the Liberals and a motley assortment of others (Respect, the BNP... look, never blame an idea for those who share it!) as against the invasion. There was some debate within that broad coalition as to when or whether it might be OK to go in, but right up to the day America and her allies rolled in conditions like UN backing were never met.
When war was declared everyone against the invasion needed to reassess their stance given the "there must not be an invasion" boat had sailed. The Liberals said they hoped for as short a conflict as possible with the minimum of civilian casualties. The Greens immediately and loudly condemned that stance. The trouble is, with no option for "war never happening", the only place that being against a short and comparatively bloodless battle leaves you is calling for a long and bloody war and / or as many civilian dead as can be piled up.
It's not that surprising: after all, a long war which forced up the oil price is better for forcing the pace of change to alternative energy sources or reductions in energy use. A painful war in Iraq fits with a (the?) central plank of the Green Party's agenda.
Yet because they get so little attention most of the time they've been able to keep a swathe of anti-war votes from internationalist and humanitarian voters, despite their real and bloodthirsty position.
And their money-tree solutions to so many things... great for bandwagon jumping, terrible for actually having to put promises into action as the unravelling of their Brighton council administration reflects. Making the numbers at least broadly add up was something the Liberals learned from the 1992 election; the Greens still have to go through that uncomfortable stage.
Then earlier this week I had the dubious pleasure of hearing the Greens' national spokesperson on Human Rights (Peter Tatchell, who whatever you think of his tactics down the years has a broad and long history in LGbt campaigning) repeatedly use "straight" as the antonym of "trans" at an LGBT public meeting. We've had "cis" as a proper word for such purposes for a good long while now, we aren't stuck with the clumsy language of the 70s any more.
As Carter would say: I turn on the box, it's like punk never happened.
They'd like to get votes by promising a money tree to everyone, when we're more aware where that leads than ever. They like to get votes from seeming fluffy on Iraq, when they were bloodthirsty hawks. And they would like to get votes from the LGBT+ communities, but even their out candidates have no interest in listening, just preaching.
Back then the Green Party looked like a plausible alternative to vote for. Indeed I've argued that if we were starting our political system from scratch in the UK, with parties based on the key issues of the coming century rather than the vested financial self-interest politics of the old century, the two main parties would be the Liberals on the left and the Greens on the right (and no doubt UKIP as a third party to soak up the ever present blame-someone-else vote).
The trouble is as they've gained the proverbial oxygen of publicity the Greens look less and less appealing.
There was Iraq, obviously. Before the 2003 invasion the Greens stood alongside the Liberals and a motley assortment of others (Respect, the BNP... look, never blame an idea for those who share it!) as against the invasion. There was some debate within that broad coalition as to when or whether it might be OK to go in, but right up to the day America and her allies rolled in conditions like UN backing were never met.
When war was declared everyone against the invasion needed to reassess their stance given the "there must not be an invasion" boat had sailed. The Liberals said they hoped for as short a conflict as possible with the minimum of civilian casualties. The Greens immediately and loudly condemned that stance. The trouble is, with no option for "war never happening", the only place that being against a short and comparatively bloodless battle leaves you is calling for a long and bloody war and / or as many civilian dead as can be piled up.
It's not that surprising: after all, a long war which forced up the oil price is better for forcing the pace of change to alternative energy sources or reductions in energy use. A painful war in Iraq fits with a (the?) central plank of the Green Party's agenda.
Yet because they get so little attention most of the time they've been able to keep a swathe of anti-war votes from internationalist and humanitarian voters, despite their real and bloodthirsty position.
And their money-tree solutions to so many things... great for bandwagon jumping, terrible for actually having to put promises into action as the unravelling of their Brighton council administration reflects. Making the numbers at least broadly add up was something the Liberals learned from the 1992 election; the Greens still have to go through that uncomfortable stage.
Then earlier this week I had the dubious pleasure of hearing the Greens' national spokesperson on Human Rights (Peter Tatchell, who whatever you think of his tactics down the years has a broad and long history in LGbt campaigning) repeatedly use "straight" as the antonym of "trans" at an LGBT public meeting. We've had "cis" as a proper word for such purposes for a good long while now, we aren't stuck with the clumsy language of the 70s any more.
As Carter would say: I turn on the box, it's like punk never happened.
They'd like to get votes by promising a money tree to everyone, when we're more aware where that leads than ever. They like to get votes from seeming fluffy on Iraq, when they were bloodthirsty hawks. And they would like to get votes from the LGBT+ communities, but even their out candidates have no interest in listening, just preaching.
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
Manchester Council takes another step in recognising bisexuality
Until not so long ago Manchester City Council had the non-existence of bisexuals as a matter of policy. No, really: in service use monitoring, equal opportunities policies and suchlike, the official line was "at those times a bisexual is lesbian or gay they are covered by those policies and at those times they are heterosexual..."
Things are improving.
They've just published the annual Communities Of Interest report, which is a kind of "here is the evidence base" document on diversity concerns for the council and for voluntary and private sector organisations they work with. This has been published for many years now, and each time has a section on LG(B)(T).
This is the first time there's been a bi section. Previously we were a subset of lesbians, which, hmmm.
Full report here. Flick past the first 64 pages and you come to:
It's fun to see my "four flavours of biphobia" model, albeit in very condensed form, in a council document. It's also a bit scary to think that I wrote it about twenty years ago, citing certain Manchester City Council services as examples of institutional and structural biphobia.
Though it is frustrating that there are no specific actions for the council and its partner organisations to take up, I hope this sets a good marker down illustrating some of the key issues for bis and the evidence base underpinning those on which to build in future years.
Things are improving.
They've just published the annual Communities Of Interest report, which is a kind of "here is the evidence base" document on diversity concerns for the council and for voluntary and private sector organisations they work with. This has been published for many years now, and each time has a section on LG(B)(T).
This is the first time there's been a bi section. Previously we were a subset of lesbians, which, hmmm.
Full report here. Flick past the first 64 pages and you come to:
9.3 Bisexual community
Recent research carried out by BiPhoria in Manchester has suggested that being visible, being included and being acknowledged are some of the main issues for Manchester’s bisexual community. Bisexual people can often experience discrimination from both the gay and heterosexual communities, and at an LGBT Discussion Day event, hosted by the Council in 2011, BiPhoria found that people wanted bisexuality to be referenced explicitly in literature and wanted services to engage more with the bisexual community. This has been a key action for the group since 2011. Bisexual ‘invisibility’, along with bi-erasure and biphobia are recognised as the most common challenges for bisexual people.
Biphobia may be characterised as taking four key forms:
––Similar to homophobia
––Similar to heterophobia
––Structural or institutional biphobia
––Internalised biphobia absorbed from a culture of the first three.
Manchester has one of the highest profile bisexual communities in the UK and is home to BiPhoria, and the bisexual magazine Bi Community News. As with any other group that experiences oppression, bisexual people may also encounter additional prejudice due to intersectional marginalised identities, for example bi women, black bisexuals, or bisexual genderqueer people.
Stonewall’s 2009 report ‘Bisexual People In The Workplace’ reflected that the positive impact of LGBT Staff Networks on lesbian and gay employees does not extend to bisexual staff. Research published by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency in 2013 showed that bisexual staff are significantly less likely to feel they can be ‘out’ in the workplace than lesbians or gay men:
The Bisexuality Report (Open University, 2012) reflected that these challenges for many bisexual people also extend into areas such as crime and policing, where homophobic hate crime monitoring may fail to address and recognise bisexuals’ experience of biphobia and homophobia.
It's fun to see my "four flavours of biphobia" model, albeit in very condensed form, in a council document. It's also a bit scary to think that I wrote it about twenty years ago, citing certain Manchester City Council services as examples of institutional and structural biphobia.
Though it is frustrating that there are no specific actions for the council and its partner organisations to take up, I hope this sets a good marker down illustrating some of the key issues for bis and the evidence base underpinning those on which to build in future years.
Sunday, 16 March 2014
Sheffield 2
This is the story of going to my third 'zine culture' event, the 2014 Sheffield Zine Fest.
This is the station. Here is the train. I'm so very late, I meant to get up early for this one but then I accidentally fired up Civilization V on my PC at about 8 o'clock last night and... well, you know how that goes. The train gently climbs up into the Pennines; we've had no snow this winter so the hilltops are clear where last year they were white. The person sat opposite me has fabulous hair, blonde and black somehow fading from one to the other in a way that evokes bumblebees in an adorable fashion. I decide this is a good omen for the day.
Despite being generally fairly good with geography, I'm rubbish at remembering which is which with different towns in Yorkshire and expect it to take as long to get to Leeds, so am surprised when all of a sudden here is Sheffield with its pretty primary-coloured trams. Always nervous of food at events I stop off for a kids meal at burger king on the station, getting a pair of big pretend spectacles as my toy. I'm not sure what I make of them.
Across the road to the electricworks, a gorgeous shiny new building. The signage is good - if I didn't already know, it's clear from these that I'm in the right place. There's a helterskelter in the reception area that you need to go up to something like the fourth floor to use; I have shocking vertigo (really - I have to psyche myself up to stand on a chair to change a lightbulb) so last year this just scared me, this year I took more time to look at it, and maybe next year I'll take a ride down it. Though it'll be best if that's when no-one of a nervous disposition is nearby as I might take a few minutes after coming to a halt to stop crying or screaming.
Past the slide and into the two main rooms. We're in the same space as in 2013 but the layout is different this time; I think it works better.
There are probably more stalls, certainly there is more room for stalls, and still a fair amount of chillout space. I think losing any more of the remaining chill space would be bad, but the extra stalls make it feel more lively taken in the round.
There seem to be more, and more varied, workshops than the year before. I'm not knocking last year's, don't get me wrong - I adored Cath's feminist zinestering session but I think it was the only session title that I felt motivated to go along to.
This time I want to go to at least three; the first is standing room only so I let it slide, the next is a "mail art" workshop which I do get along to. After that there are two more sessions and I decide to go to the one not run by the facilitator of the mail art session; not because they weren't nice or anything like that, just to try and mingle a bit more widely. Alas the previous workshop in room 2 has over-run by about half an hour and so I let my aim of attending this one go too. Still, the workshops do seem to be very popular and they work well for the likes of me in getting me talking to other people.
Speaking of the mailart session, this is where I finally learn how to turn two of the recipes in the origami
book that I won at the BiCon 2013 Pass-The-Parcel workshop into
successfully folded bits of paper!
Beware I may be sitting on trains for the next couple of months carefully folding sheets of A4 to use for some eyecatching flyer or other using the techniques learned. I just need some kind of event or survey to want to promote...
The actual sessions are in two workshop rooms. I don't see anyone use workshop room three but it's been set up around a neat idea, a little quiet corner of zinester heaven with typewriter, longarm stapler, guillotine and suchlike in it.
One of the things I notice is a fair sprinkling of things pitched at child involvement and several children bobbing about the place. I'm not sure if this is actually more than last time or if I'm just noticing it this time.
There's so much variety in an event that seems to be bringing together many subcultural strands in one place. Fringe political voices; feminist zines; music zines, which I don't touch now but a billion years ago were one of my two introductions to small press culture before I found feminist and queer zines; things I somehow remember now as "normal zines", which are probably mostly perzine stuff often about growing up; art prints and terribly artsy things that I wouldn't go near but are clearly exactly what chimes for some others. It's interesting to hear people during the day describe different ones of these subcultures within Sheffield as being especially male or female spaces.
I'm reminded of my learning from last year: at a fair like this the zines really really need some kind of explanatory label next to them that outline what they are about and who they would appeal to. A clever name and the writer's favourite kind of paper and ink isn't enough, unless you are a regular reader of that zinester's work. "This is about teenage crushes looked back at from the safety of my 20s" is grand and quickly tells you if this is your sort of a thing.
As last year there are some nice touches to take it beyond just being tables with zines and a workshop room. Someone is using the huge glass walls to draw a map of Sheffield and its surrounds with stories of the social-political history of the area. It's interesting as I know quite a bit of this kind of thing for Manchester but not for the other side of the Pennines; there is lots of overlap as the same laws and social battles were being fought for people across the North and most of the country, but the names and places are all a little different. And as with last year's 1913 history wall, it gives you something to do if you're a bit scaredy of talking to all the cool kids.
A stall has badgemaking for 50p a pop - this is always a winner at events - and a fun game of write / draw consequences that impresses me greatly with its simplicity and potential for turning into a display later in the day.
I find and buy Cath's new zine, and find Tracey's zines and take a promised photo of them "seen in the wild". Photos for this
blog are a good icebreaker of tidy manners; can I snap this, I promise
you won't be in the shot is enough like the photo protocol at bi events that I know how to say it, and gets you talking with the people whose stall you're visiting.
I pop a couple of BCNs on the freebies table, which is a blur of a few zines and quite a lot of flyers for things. BCNs don't look very "zine culture" though, and the two are still there when I head off home around five. They'll keep for another table the organisers host somewhere else, I'm sure.
The evening has some more ace sounding things lined up, but feels like a space where I'd want to have one or two friends there or to have a role like taking donations on the door, and besides I have my own other plans for the evening back home.
On the way back across the Pennines to Mancashire I think: if there is another of these next year I really must take a table and fill it with queer zinery. Not many people will want them due to the peculiar mishmash of social circles that come to ZineFest, but being there feels kind of important in outreachy ways. It will mean hauling myself into writing some of those "bubbling under" zines that I keep meaning to distil from bath rants to actual words on paper.
Probably 51 weekends left to get round to all that in...
This is the station. Here is the train. I'm so very late, I meant to get up early for this one but then I accidentally fired up Civilization V on my PC at about 8 o'clock last night and... well, you know how that goes. The train gently climbs up into the Pennines; we've had no snow this winter so the hilltops are clear where last year they were white. The person sat opposite me has fabulous hair, blonde and black somehow fading from one to the other in a way that evokes bumblebees in an adorable fashion. I decide this is a good omen for the day.Despite being generally fairly good with geography, I'm rubbish at remembering which is which with different towns in Yorkshire and expect it to take as long to get to Leeds, so am surprised when all of a sudden here is Sheffield with its pretty primary-coloured trams. Always nervous of food at events I stop off for a kids meal at burger king on the station, getting a pair of big pretend spectacles as my toy. I'm not sure what I make of them.Across the road to the electricworks, a gorgeous shiny new building. The signage is good - if I didn't already know, it's clear from these that I'm in the right place. There's a helterskelter in the reception area that you need to go up to something like the fourth floor to use; I have shocking vertigo (really - I have to psyche myself up to stand on a chair to change a lightbulb) so last year this just scared me, this year I took more time to look at it, and maybe next year I'll take a ride down it. Though it'll be best if that's when no-one of a nervous disposition is nearby as I might take a few minutes after coming to a halt to stop crying or screaming.
Past the slide and into the two main rooms. We're in the same space as in 2013 but the layout is different this time; I think it works better.
There are probably more stalls, certainly there is more room for stalls, and still a fair amount of chillout space. I think losing any more of the remaining chill space would be bad, but the extra stalls make it feel more lively taken in the round.
This time I want to go to at least three; the first is standing room only so I let it slide, the next is a "mail art" workshop which I do get along to. After that there are two more sessions and I decide to go to the one not run by the facilitator of the mail art session; not because they weren't nice or anything like that, just to try and mingle a bit more widely. Alas the previous workshop in room 2 has over-run by about half an hour and so I let my aim of attending this one go too. Still, the workshops do seem to be very popular and they work well for the likes of me in getting me talking to other people.
Speaking of the mailart session, this is where I finally learn how to turn two of the recipes in the origami
book that I won at the BiCon 2013 Pass-The-Parcel workshop into
successfully folded bits of paper!Beware I may be sitting on trains for the next couple of months carefully folding sheets of A4 to use for some eyecatching flyer or other using the techniques learned. I just need some kind of event or survey to want to promote...
The actual sessions are in two workshop rooms. I don't see anyone use workshop room three but it's been set up around a neat idea, a little quiet corner of zinester heaven with typewriter, longarm stapler, guillotine and suchlike in it.
There's so much variety in an event that seems to be bringing together many subcultural strands in one place. Fringe political voices; feminist zines; music zines, which I don't touch now but a billion years ago were one of my two introductions to small press culture before I found feminist and queer zines; things I somehow remember now as "normal zines", which are probably mostly perzine stuff often about growing up; art prints and terribly artsy things that I wouldn't go near but are clearly exactly what chimes for some others. It's interesting to hear people during the day describe different ones of these subcultures within Sheffield as being especially male or female spaces.
I'm reminded of my learning from last year: at a fair like this the zines really really need some kind of explanatory label next to them that outline what they are about and who they would appeal to. A clever name and the writer's favourite kind of paper and ink isn't enough, unless you are a regular reader of that zinester's work. "This is about teenage crushes looked back at from the safety of my 20s" is grand and quickly tells you if this is your sort of a thing.
A stall has badgemaking for 50p a pop - this is always a winner at events - and a fun game of write / draw consequences that impresses me greatly with its simplicity and potential for turning into a display later in the day.
I pop a couple of BCNs on the freebies table, which is a blur of a few zines and quite a lot of flyers for things. BCNs don't look very "zine culture" though, and the two are still there when I head off home around five. They'll keep for another table the organisers host somewhere else, I'm sure.
The evening has some more ace sounding things lined up, but feels like a space where I'd want to have one or two friends there or to have a role like taking donations on the door, and besides I have my own other plans for the evening back home.
Probably 51 weekends left to get round to all that in...
Saturday, 1 February 2014
More Zine Shenanigans in Sheffield
Oh hurrah!
Last spring I dipped my first toe into the 'proper' zinester scene / culture by going to Sheffield ZineFest 2013 for the day. There was lots of shiny goodness about the day from the gorgeous venue to being immersed in a strand of DIY culture that I somehow both deeply inhabit (as someone who's been churning out oodles of papery goodness since the mid 1990s) and never go anywhere near (as I've been mostly doing it in queer spaces rather than 'zine' circles).
It's back in March. Consider me busy for the day...
Last spring I dipped my first toe into the 'proper' zinester scene / culture by going to Sheffield ZineFest 2013 for the day. There was lots of shiny goodness about the day from the gorgeous venue to being immersed in a strand of DIY culture that I somehow both deeply inhabit (as someone who's been churning out oodles of papery goodness since the mid 1990s) and never go anywhere near (as I've been mostly doing it in queer spaces rather than 'zine' circles).
It's back in March. Consider me busy for the day...
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