POC ZINE PROJECT

Posts tagged zinester spotlight

Meet POCZP’s Midwest Coordinator Joyce Hatton! Part of POC Zine Project’s advocacy is empowering new and seasoned zinesters of color in the U.S. (and soon worldwide) to share their stories while supporting other POC. Joyce is the first regional coordinator for POCZP and we are excited to share developments as this part of our experiment in activism and community through materiality unfolds.  JOYCE, IN HER OWN WORDS I was raised in South Dakota.  Being a black person raised in South Dakota is a big old can of worms.  I currently live in Moorhead, MN, border city of the better known Fargo, ND.  I lived in Philadelphia for a bit, but then the drugs got the better of me, also the fact that I didn’t get every job I applied for (the low unemployment rates of the Dakotas spoiled her) so I returned to Moorhead.  I spent time on an organic vegetable farm in California until I got cancer and returned to Moorhead.Cancer did what my ongoing mental health issues couldn’t do: it forced me to get sober and confront the trauma in my life, some of which began with being raised black in South Dakota.  Growing up as a black, non-heteronormative, radical female in small town South Dakota, I experienced some difficulties.  In addition to the overt racism, many of my (almost exclusively white) friends said and did racist things out of ignorance.  I had no idea how to handle it.  Since my mother grew up in Jim Crow-era South her advice was for me to keep my mouth shut.  For her, that was the way to stay safe.  On top of that, my family wasn’t a very safe space because they let me know there would be hell to pay if I wasn’t straight.  And I constantly argued with my mother about feminism and other ideas that I felt defined who I was.Last fall I was fairly distraught.  For various reasons I felt disillusioned and aimless. I ended up in the psych hospital, and while I was there I made a zine. It felt so self-validating, empowering, and uplifting. Shortly after making it, I discovered POCZP.  It kept me interested in zines because I found so many connections that validated what I was experiencing, and helped me learn about myself, and ideas I cared about.  I felt like I was part of a community, and I felt re-radicalized.   My goals for working with POCZP are to: 1) to build community in Fargo-Moorhead, share POC zines, and create safe spaces for POC and allies to have an honest, open sharing of ideas and experiences. 2) find ways effectively and easily share the POCZP’s mission and zine making with physically, emotionally, or ideologically isolated POC in rural areas and small towns in the Midwest. CONNECT WITH JOYCE:  http://airhornoftruthandlove.tumblr.com https://www.facebook.com/TransformingMyMouthIntoAStrident ——— COMMUNITY: Join us in welcoming Joyce. We are excited to support zine culture and POC storytelling in the Midwest! Although our 2013 Race Riot! tour does not have a tour date in this region, our National POC Zinester & Ally Conference/Convergence will be held in the Midwest. Stay tuned for details … DO YOU WANT TO BE A COORDINATOR LIKE JOYCE? If you are in the Midwest and want to support POCZP with Joyce, let us know! We are also looking for representatives in every state, as well as regional  support, as we build toward the National POC Zinester & Ally Conference/Convergence. Ideally you have some experience with organizing events and building community, but experience is not required. All are welcome. Priority will be given to people of color who apply but allies are definitely welcome. Contact poczineproject@gmail.com for more details with “regional coordinator” as the subject line. If you are outside the U.S. and want to be a part of our emerging POCZP Global Ambassadors program, email poczineproject@gmail.com as well to stay informed as opportunities arise. SUPPORT POC ZINE PROJECT If everyone in our community gave $1, we would more than meet our fundraising goal for 2013. If you have it to spare, we appreciate your support. All funds go to our 2013 tour, the Legacy Series and the poverty zine series. DONATE link via PayPal: http://bit.ly/SHdmyh

Meet POCZP’s Midwest Coordinator Joyce Hatton!

Part of POC Zine Project’s advocacy is empowering new and seasoned zinesters of color in the U.S. (and soon worldwide) to share their stories while supporting other POC. Joyce is the first regional coordinator for POCZP and we are excited to share developments as this part of our experiment in activism and community through materiality unfolds. 

JOYCE, IN HER OWN WORDS

I was raised in South Dakota.  Being a black person raised in South Dakota is a big old can of worms.  

I currently live in Moorhead, MN, border city of the better known Fargo, ND.  I lived in Philadelphia for a bit, but then the drugs got the better of me, also the fact that I didn’t get every job I applied for (the low unemployment rates of the Dakotas spoiled her) so I returned to Moorhead.  I spent time on an organic vegetable farm in California until I got cancer and returned to Moorhead.

Cancer did what my ongoing mental health issues couldn’t do: it forced me to get sober and confront the trauma in my life, some of which began with being raised black in South Dakota.  

Growing up as a black, non-heteronormative, radical female in small town South Dakota, I experienced some difficulties.  In addition to the overt racism, many of my (almost exclusively white) friends said and did racist things out of ignorance.  I had no idea how to handle it.  Since my mother grew up in Jim Crow-era South her advice was for me to keep my mouth shut.  For her, that was the way to stay safe.  On top of that, my family wasn’t a very safe space because they let me know there would be hell to pay if I wasn’t straight.  And I constantly argued with my mother about feminism and other ideas that I felt defined who I was.

Last fall I was fairly distraught.  For various reasons I felt disillusioned and aimless. I ended up in the psych hospital, and while I was there I made a zine. It felt so self-validating, empowering, and uplifting. Shortly after making it, I discovered POCZP.  It kept me interested in zines because I found so many connections that validated what I was experiencing, and helped me learn about myself, and ideas I cared about.  I felt like I was part of a community, and I felt re-radicalized.  
 
My goals for working with POCZP are to:

1) to build community in Fargo-Moorhead, share POC zines, and create safe spaces for POC and allies to have an honest, open sharing of ideas and experiences.

2) find ways effectively and easily share the POCZP’s mission and zine making with physically, emotionally, or ideologically isolated POC in rural areas and small towns in the Midwest.

CONNECT WITH JOYCE: 

http://airhornoftruthandlove.tumblr.com

https://www.facebook.com/TransformingMyMouthIntoAStrident

———

COMMUNITY: Join us in welcoming Joyce. We are excited to support zine culture and POC storytelling in the Midwest! Although our 2013 Race Riot! tour does not have a tour date in this region, our National POC Zinester & Ally Conference/Convergence will be held in the Midwest. Stay tuned for details …

DO YOU WANT TO BE A COORDINATOR LIKE JOYCE?

If you are in the Midwest and want to support POCZP with Joyce, let us know! We are also looking for representatives in every state, as well as regional  support, as we build toward the National POC Zinester & Ally Conference/Convergence. Ideally you have some experience with organizing events and building community, but experience is not required. All are welcome. Priority will be given to people of color who apply but allies are definitely welcome.

Contact poczineproject@gmail.com for more details with “regional coordinator” as the subject line.

If you are outside the U.S. and want to be a part of our emerging POCZP Global Ambassadors program, email poczineproject@gmail.com as well to stay informed as opportunities arise.

SUPPORT POC ZINE PROJECT

If everyone in our community gave $1, we would more than meet our fundraising goal for 2013. If you have it to spare, we appreciate your support. All funds go to our 2013 tour, the Legacy Series and the poverty zine series.

DONATE link via PayPal: http://bit.ly/SHdmyh

Meet POCZP’s Chief Fanalyst for the Legacy Series: Julia B. aka Ju!

Julia B., or Ju: First Official Fanalyst to participate in the POC Zine Project's Legacy Series

NAME: Julia B. (also goes by Ju)

ROLE: Chief Fanalyst for POC Zine Project’s Legacy Series

REGION: East Coast (Brooklyn), USA

COMMUNITY: Ju has been a POCZP member since the beginning. You’ll be seeing more of their contributions manifest on this Tumblr and in other digital and physical spaces very soon …. <3

IN JU’S OWN WORDS

Hi there. I’m Julia B., or Ju (if we’re being informal, which suits me fine), and I’m the first Official (and Chief) Fanalyst to participate in the POC Zine Project’s Legacy Series!

I’m very excited to be part of this series, and I’m looking forward to sharing more about the first Legacy Series selection: Fire!!: A Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists, published in 1926. I should probably begin by explaining what my role will be.

fan: As in, amateur. I’m not a professional historian, just an enthusiastic history lover with library access. Whether it’s sci-fi fans swapping self-written stories through the mail, or specialized distros offering up all manner of self-published work at concerts, zine readings and the like, zine culture has consistently been defined by its place outside of the traditional publishing world. Keeping that in mind, the folks writing this series are taking part because we genuinely love the works we’re talking about, and want to share those works as laypeople in an accessible way.

analyst: I’ll be doing a close read and giving background details about the magazine, page by page. Sort of like “Pop-Up Video” but in written form.

Graphic for Ju's Chief Fanalyst bio In lieu of elaborate on-location choreography, I’ll be taking you further into not only the text of Fire!!, but also the world in which it was published—from the author’s contemporaries to the neighborhood in which their office was situated, and more. Ideally, by the time you’re done checking out what I’ve got for you, you’ll have music to listen to, visual artists to check out, books you’ll want to look for. Like I said, I’m enthusiastic about history, and my goal is to make sure that you’re just as thrilled about learning more as I was doing the research.

So why exactly am I so thrilled to be working on Fire!! in particular? Well, as a literature fan, I’ve loved Zora Neale Hurston’s, Langston Hughes’, and Countee Cullen’s writing for years. For many, those names might be the most familiar in the list of contributors to Fire!!, and I’m sure a lot of you out there are already fans of their work. But what of the other contributors alluded to in the “younger negro artists” of the magazine’s title? I see this as a chance for those who are more familiar with the writers in this publication to learn more about the visual artists who contributed, and vice versa, while I take a look at the perspectives that link them all together.

I’m also excited because Fire!! was controversial in its time. The contributors were not interested in perpetuating the politics of respectability. They did not create the magazine to keep in step with the artists of generations before them. In short, they were uncomfortable because they refused to conform to more (Black middle-class) palatable sensibilities.

I mean, check out some of the stuff people were saying when this little magazine out of Harlem made its way into print:

Rean Graves of the Baltimore Afro-American [newspaper] was incensed by the magazine and wrote in his review, “I have just tossed the first issue of Fire!! into the fire.” Benjamin Brawley went so far as to say that if the U.S. Post Office found out about Thurman’s “Cordelia the Crude,” the magazine might be barred from the mail.[1]

Pretty strong reactions to a fledgling publication! The contributors wrote about touchy subjects such as colorism among Black Americans and prostitution. They made deliberate use of Black American vernacular, in an effort to make the voices of their works ring true to the people they represented. And pissed off a bunch of uptight people in the process, even though only one issue of Fire!! was ever published. It’s easy to think of “cutting edge” in the present tense, but in exploring the magazine, we get the chance to check out what the Black American nonconformists of 1926 had to say, and what value those messages hold for us in the present day.

Anyway, enough out of me! I’m looking forward to talking with you further… hopefully we can start a cool conversation (or several) about this classic work. Stay tuned!

[1]: Patton, Venetria K., and Maureen Honey. “The Harlem Renaissance.” Oxford African American Studies Center: Guest Scholars. Oxford University Press. Web. <http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/featureded/guest_5.jsp>

DO YOU WANT TO BE A FANALYST FOR THE LEGACY SERIES?

The only criteria is that you have to be a person of color! Submit here and tell us a little about yourself. Please include links to some writing samples. Good luck!

White allies: There are other ways for you to support the Legacy Series. Please email daniela@dcapmedia.com for details.

ABOUT THE LEGACY SERIES

Kicking off with FIRE!!, POC Zine Project will make zines by people of color created from the 1700s-1990s available to read and share.

Every Friday (Editor’s note: date pushed to February), you will find a legacy zine by a person of color on poczineproject.tumblr.com. We will share more details in 2013.

WHY WE ARE FOCUSING ON LEGACY ZINES

People of color in the U.S. have produced independent publications (zines) for decades. Many of these zines were political in nature, creating cracks in the lens of white supremacy that shaped (and continues to inform) popular culture and legislation.

These zines were new maps to our liberation, countering the negative propaganda of what people of color looked like, thought and were capable of achieving.

We want the world to know about these legacy zines, so we are going to archive and share them to the best of our ability.

We look forward to partnering with distros, academic spaces, libraries, anti-authoritarian collectives, literary journals, bloggers and more to share the Legacy Series.

“NEW” ZINESTERS: We will still share information about new and upcoming zines by people of color :) Please continue to submit your zines to the archive.

ABOUT THE RACE RIOT! TOUR

POC Zine Project held its first Race Riot! Tour in 2012, producing 20 events in 14 cities, which included speaking engagements at six universities. Click here to view photos from the POC Zine Project: 2012 Race Riot! Tour tour finale at Death By Audio in Brooklyn and access all the tour stop recaps.

We will be taking the Race Riot! Tour through 14 more cities in 2013. Stay tuned!

SUPPORT POC ZINE PROJECT

If everyone in our community gave $1, we would more than meet our fundraising goal for 2013. If you have it to spare, we appreciate your support. All funds go to our 2013 tour, the Legacy Series and the poverty zine series.

DONATE link via PayPal: http://bit.ly/SHdmyh

Meet POCZP’s first Legacy Series intern: Itoro Udofia!

EDIT: Itoro Udofia: First dedicated intern for POCZP's Legacy Series (Spring 2013)

NAME: Itoro Udofia

ROLE: First dedicated intern for the POC Zine Project’s Legacy Series

REGION: West Coast, USA

COMMUNITY: Join us in welcoming Itoro! You’ll be seeing her contributions manifest on this Tumblr and in other digital and physical spaces very soon …. <3

Bio: Itoro is a first generation writer, artist, and educator of Nigerian origin living in the Bay Area. She develops programs for youth of color (Youth Programs Associate at the Museum of the African Diaspora) where they have a space to honor their histories and thrive. You can find her writings on Your World News, People of Color Organize, Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal, Womanist Musings, and her own blog Thoughts of my Mind. Her writings focus on the intersections and dynamics of race, class, gender, power, survival/healing and education.

She also teaches an African History course and when she is not doing that, she works closely with a community organization dear to her heart, working to abolish the school to prison pipeline and hearing the youth speak their truth to move to action. She is happy to be a Bay Area resident and feels like here, she has found a bit of peace and a bit of home!

Itoro’s excited to be an intern with the POC Zine Project because it is a collective that uplifts and cares about what people of color have to say and acknowledges what they have always said.

Some texts that furthered her political consciousness and commitment to uplifting the voices of POC and their struggles are The Revolution Starts at Home, This Bridge Called My Back and Steve Biko’s I Write What I Like: Selected Writings. All these zines and texts named what it means to speak out from the margins and hold to ones principle in building a world that includes us all, and calls for a life of love and continued struggle in ALL our spaces, seen and unseen. Moreover, with many people coming out from the margins, she did not feel alone.

Ultimately, Itoro hopes to be a part of a larger community committed to making our written word available, accessible and visible. Other perks to the internship are gaining more knowledge and organizing with radical zinesters. As an intern, she hopes to further her knowledge about zine culture and help get our Voices out. She is excited and ready to begin this journey and is happy to call the POC Zine Project her media home.

COMMUNITY: Learn more about POCZP internship & volunteer opportunities here. We are still accepting applications for the Summer and Fall sessions. 

IN ITORO’S OWN WORDS

Here are some excerpt from her application that are important to share:

Zine culture, specifically the material production of our knowledge is important to me because our voices are often co-opted, misused or completely erased in the literary canon. I have experienced this dangerous and painful trend most profoundly as an educator within the context of radical and progressive education. Save for bell hooks, Sonia nieto, Michele Foster and a few other people of color directly explaining the intricacies of power and privilege as a teacher of color, outlining a liberatory pedagogy through navigating a hostile terrain and offering something invaluable to the field through articulating underlying race, class and gender dynamics, it was difficult to fully relate to radical literature. I found that much of its thought and analysis was filtered through a white liberal/radical context. Even the class analysis was lacking because the white elephant in the room, white supremacy, was not directly dealt with. These power dynamics alone, the dynamics of who gets listened to, who controls the written word, who controls the publishing house, the way information gets told is what fuels my commitment to writing and working with people of color to have complete autonomy over their material.

… The POC Zine project is necessary at this particular time where knowledge and overall experiences are actively ignored.  Centering people of color’s material contributions as a source of  is important, and is a part of honoring a larger history of people who kept going in spite of these hurdles.  

SOME OF ITORO’S WRITING

In a Quiet Place, A Radical Profeminist (Fall 2012)  

In a Quiet Place, The Black Feminist Manifesto (Fall 2012)

In a Quiet Place, Your World News (Fall 2012)  

Missy Anne’s on the lookout for me, Your World News (Summer 2012)  

And When You Leave, Take your Pictures with you, Your World News (Spring 2012) 

Black Power, Leadership and Privilege, Your World News (Winter 2012)

Shedding the Tears, Looking Back, Moving Forward, People of Color Organize (Winter 2012) 

Conversations with a Student Teacher of Color, Womanist Musings (Fall 2010) 

ABOUT THE LEGACY SERIES

Kicking off with FIRE!!, POC Zine Project will make zines by people of color created from the 1700s-1990s available to read and share.

Every Friday (Editor’s note: date pushed to February), you will find a legacy zine by a person of color on poczineproject.tumblr.com. We will share more details in 2013.

WHY WE ARE FOCUSING ON LEGACY ZINES

People of color in the U.S. have produced independent publications (zines) for decades. Many of these zines were political in nature, creating cracks in the lens of white supremacy that shaped (and continues to inform) popular culture and legislation.

These zines were new maps to our liberation, countering the negative propaganda of what people of color looked like, thought and were capable of achieving.

We want the world to know about these legacy zines, so we are going to archive and share them to the best of our ability.

We look forward to partnering with distros, academic spaces, libraries, anti-authoritarian collectives, literary journals, bloggers and more to share the Legacy Series.

“NEW” ZINESTERS: We will still share information about new and upcoming zines by people of color :) Please continue to submit your zines to the archive.

ABOUT THE RACE RIOT! TOUR

POC Zine Project held its first Race Riot! Tour in 2012, producing 20 events in 14 cities, which included speaking engagements at six universities. Click here to view photos from the POC Zine Project: 2012 Race Riot! Tour tour finale at Death By Audio in Brooklyn and access all the tour stop recaps.

We will be taking the Race Riot! Tour through 14 more cities in 2013. Stay tuned!

SUPPORT POC ZINE PROJECT

If everyone in our community gave $1, we would more than meet our fundraising goal for 2013. If you have it to spare, we appreciate your support. All funds go to our 2013 tour, the Legacy Series and the poverty zine series.

DONATE link via PayPal: http://bit.ly/SHdmyh

You can also send well-concealed cash or a check! Email daniela@dcapmedia.com for details or if you have questions.

Info about the poverty zine series: http://bit.ly/RLVTVt

I think the idea of collecting and gathering history because we want to preserve it and share is crucial, especially when we want to hold organizers and writers accountable for the choices they make in how they write about a community like zinesters or organizers when they plan events.

We have been around since the beginning and we are very diverse group writing about all kinds of things and not just race. And there is no excuse not to be aware of this! Also we’ve done some pretty amazing things! - Tomas Moniz, Rad Dad zine

POC Zine Project Q & A with Tomas Moniz

When we found out that Tomas was one of the organizers for this year’s East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest (going down TOMORROW, Dec 8!), we decided to ask him a few questions about his history with the fest, thoughts on the relevance of Riot Grrrl, the future of Rad Dad, and more. Enjoy!

image

POCZP: How did you get involved with the East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest and why did you decide to take the lead on organizing this year’s fest? What does your role entail?

Tomas: MK Chavez, a bad ass chicana poet, and I were at the SF Zine fest and we realized so many of the tablers were from Oakland and Berkeley and other parts of the East Bay, so we said we should do something 6 months from the SF zine fest. And we did.

We wanted a space to highlight the local writing community particularly because we like to get and read zines but mostly so we could create a community here, get people to mingle, talk, and as a result I think there has been a strong growth in writing groups, monthly literary readings and events!

We each took leadership responsibilities and each year new people step up to help get the work done!

POCZP: You started Rad Dad after becoming a parent at 20, right? In terms of radical/DIY resources for dads since that time, what have you seen emerge that you’re excited about and what is in store for the future of Rad Dad zine?

How long to do you plan on continuing it and would you hand it off to someone else, or will it just stop when you stop?

imageTomas: Funny you should ask about handing it off; I have been contemplating the transition because all along I’ve wanted Rad Dad to be about community rather than an individual or me.

I also though think it’s important as a father whose gone through it to pick up some of the work that new parents often times simply can’t do because of the differing demands on their time; I like to think of Rad Dad as a bridge, as the light at the end of the tunnel, reminding especially new parents that you will get through the struggle and you can come out a better person!

POCZP: You have two teenage daughters. Is Riot Grrrl something they relate to/have explored? Also, what is their relationship to zines and how do you encourage them in that regard?

Tomas: The definitely have their own musical tastes and interests. They know riot grrrl and know the music but it certainly is not theirs; they have their own likes and sometimes those likes are pretty problematic, but what I think is so important is that we can talk about those issues, talk about that contradictory place we all find ourselves in from time to time in which you like something but recognize its contradictions, its flaws and from that make informed choices.

They don’t make their own zines but they read them and they come with me to the events…

POCZP: What are your top 5 tips for someone who wants to start a zine fest in their town?

Tomas: Call a meeting and get started…I think you really only need like two or three people. Start off with just getting a day and twenty tables and a space. Don’t try to do too much at first.

Later you can add speakers and workshops. But I also encourage you to try something different — make it a skill share, do it at a park, drop-in style, remember the point is community not commerce.

Keep it affordable for people; reach out to people and ask for help or what you need; you’d be surprised how often you get it.

POCZP: What are your top 10 favorite zines right now (can be old, new, doesn’t matter)?

Tomas:  [provided a list]

• Wonder & Wander by Annie Yu — so awesome it’s this mix of her finding a used typewriter, how to gude for using a typwriter, maps of walking the streets of San Francisco

• Boob Juice by Mindi Jackson – a young mama wrestling with big questions and a little baby

• Dreams of Donuts by Heather Wreckage – a really strong comic zine dealing with occupy Oakland and other issues

• Kerbloom by Artnoose — just plain wonderful and consistent

• Book of Ladders by Jacks Ashley McNamara — a beautiful mix of essays and poems dealing with class and identity

• RACE (revolutionary anti-authoritarians of color) — a one-time zine from early 00s dealing with race and anarchism!

• Illegal Voices — came out of the APOC community with so many powerful essays

• Tenacious: Writing by Incarcerated Women edited by — Vikki Law’s zine for and by women prisoners

• The Nerve of These People by Anna Quinonez — drawings of revolutionary women

• Without Words & Without Kneeling by Tomas Moniz – a serialized zine novella about an anarchist study group

POCZP: You said you’ve been following POC Zine Project for a while. What did you think when you first heard about it, and why do you think it’s important (if you do at all)?

Tomas: I was and am excited. I think the idea of collecting and gathering history because we want to preserve it and share is crucial especially when we want to hold organizers and writers accountable for the choices they make in how they write about a community like zinesters or organizers when they plan events.

We have been around since the beginning and we are very diverse group writing about all kinds of things and not just race. And there is no excuse not to be aware of this! Also we’ve done some pretty amazing things!

POCZP: Some zinesters of color have had experiences with feeling unwelcome in zine spaces/DIY communities. Has that been your experience at all?

Tomas: My experience of feeling kind of isolated rather than unwelcome was more in the activist/anarchist scene here in the Bay. It’s was very white but that has been changing.

But I realize my privilege in living in a very diverse region so there has always been other zinesters and also there has always been support. When we felt there was an issue, we seemed to quickly get together and address it.

But I still get letters from parents who live in very homogenous communities and that is why I still do zines, I still write letters, I still work to gather voices in Rad Dad form those who don’t always get a chance to tell their story: parents of color, young parents, queer or trans parents because it’s important to let others know they are not alone.

- Q & A by POCZP founder Daniela Capistrano

ZINESTER SPOTLIGHT: Nia King POC Zine Project founder Daniela Capistrano met Nia in person - for the first time - on November 9, while working in San Francisco. It was fortuitous, because just a week or two prior, Daniela ordered Nia&#8217;s back catalogue of zines for the POC Zine Project archive directly from Nia. Nia and Daniela had a great conversation about the historical context of zines by POC, the role of POC Zine Project and materiality as a catalyst for activism and building community. Some of this discussion will appear in an interview for Colorlines.com in the coming weeks. Here are excepts from the letter that Nia mailed Daniela with the zine order: &#8230;I am working on something for the Mixed-Race Queer Feminist zine. I also submitted a revised/improved version of &#8220;The First 7-Inch Was Better&#8221; for the &#8220;Punk Anterior&#8221; issue of Women and Performance: a Journal of Feminist Theory. It should be coming out any day now. &#8230;I just wanted to say that I really respect the work you are doing, and I wish there had been a resource like POC Zine Project when I was a young zinester. We &lt;3 you, Nia! Thanks for everything that you do. We look forward to collaborating with you on the 2013 Southwest/West Coast Race Riot! Tour! ABOUT NIA Nia King is a mixed-race artist, activist, writer, and filmmaker from Boston, MA who is proud to call Oakland home. She currently writes for Colorlines.com, a national racial justice news website. Before joining Colorlines, Nia worked to improve the quality of life of queer and transgender students of color at Mills College by organizing a number of educational, political, and social events for the campus community. Before moving to Oakland, Nia served as a Grassroots Fundraising Specialist and Crisis Hotline Volunteer at the Colorado Anti-Violence Program, a nonprofit which works to end violence within and against Colorado&#8217;s LGBTQ communities. In addition to her nonprofit work, Nia has spend the last five years self-publishing, presenting at conferences, and screening her film, &#8220;The Craigslist Chronicles.&#8221; Her writing has been published in Zine Yearbook 9, Race Revolt Magazine, and the book Zines in Third Space: Radical Cooperation and Borderlands Rhetoric. More of her writing is soon to be published in Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory. Nia has presented her undergraduate research project, &#8220;Mangos with Chili: Life-Sustaining Performance Art for and by Queer and Transgender People of Color,&#8221; at Stanford University, UC Riverside, and the University of Arizona. Her most recent project, a short comedic film about apartment hunting in Oakland, premiered at the 2012 National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco, and recently had its international premiere at the Trans Film Screening Series at the University of Toronto&#8217;s Center for Women &amp; Trans People. You can contact Nia directly at niaking@zoho.com. COMMUNITY: You can access many of Nia&#8217;s zines for free on QZAP.org, as well as order them from Stranger Danger Distro. Here&#8217;s a taste: The 7-Inch was Better: How I Became and Ex-Punk (online at QZAP) “Nia (Angry Black-White Girl and Borderlands) comes forward to declare her status as an ex-punk. She criticizes anarcho-punk and many activist scenes for its ignorance and the lack of inclusion of folks of color, women and queers. Nia refuses to leave a part of herself at the door in order to adjust to the whiteness and maleness of a musical scene that she once truly enjoyed. The zine also includes a pull-out portion in which you can take along to your next show in order to challenge yourself, your friends and other bystanders.” - quoted from StrangerDangerDistro.com

ZINESTER SPOTLIGHT: Nia King

POC Zine Project founder Daniela Capistrano met Nia in person - for the first time - on November 9, while working in San Francisco. It was fortuitous, because just a week or two prior, Daniela ordered Nia’s back catalogue of zines for the POC Zine Project archive directly from Nia.

Nia and Daniela had a great conversation about the historical context of zines by POC, the role of POC Zine Project and materiality as a catalyst for activism and building community. Some of this discussion will appear in an interview for Colorlines.com in the coming weeks.

Here are excepts from the letter that Nia mailed Daniela with the zine order:

…I am working on something for the Mixed-Race Queer Feminist zine. I also submitted a revised/improved version of “The First 7-Inch Was Better” for the “Punk Anterior” issue of Women and Performance: a Journal of Feminist Theory. It should be coming out any day now.

…I just wanted to say that I really respect the work you are doing, and I wish there had been a resource like POC Zine Project when I was a young zinester.

We <3 you, Nia! Thanks for everything that you do. We look forward to collaborating with you on the 2013 Southwest/West Coast Race Riot! Tour!

ABOUT NIA

Nia King is a mixed-race artist, activist, writer, and filmmaker from Boston, MA who is proud to call Oakland home. She currently writes for Colorlines.com, a national racial justice news website.

Before joining Colorlines, Nia worked to improve the quality of life of queer and transgender students of color at Mills College by organizing a number of educational, political, and social events for the campus community.

Before moving to Oakland, Nia served as a Grassroots Fundraising Specialist and Crisis Hotline Volunteer at the Colorado Anti-Violence Program, a nonprofit which works to end violence within and against Colorado’s LGBTQ communities.

In addition to her nonprofit work, Nia has spend the last five years self-publishing, presenting at conferences, and screening her film, “The Craigslist Chronicles.” Her writing has been published in Zine Yearbook 9, Race Revolt Magazine, and the book Zines in Third Space: Radical Cooperation and Borderlands Rhetoric. More of her writing is soon to be published in Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory.

Nia has presented her undergraduate research project, “Mangos with Chili: Life-Sustaining Performance Art for and by Queer and Transgender People of Color,” at Stanford University, UC Riverside, and the University of Arizona. Her most recent project, a short comedic film about apartment hunting in Oakland, premiered at the 2012 National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco, and recently had its international premiere at the Trans Film Screening Series at the University of Toronto’s Center for Women & Trans People.

You can contact Nia directly at niaking@zoho.com.

COMMUNITY: You can access many of Nia’s zines for free on QZAP.org, as well as order them from Stranger Danger Distro. Here’s a taste:

The 7-Inch was Better: How I Became and Ex-Punk (online at QZAP)

“Nia (Angry Black-White Girl and Borderlands) comes forward to declare her status as an ex-punk. She criticizes anarcho-punk and many activist scenes for its ignorance and the lack of inclusion of folks of color, women and queers. Nia refuses to leave a part of herself at the door in order to adjust to the whiteness and maleness of a musical scene that she once truly enjoyed. The zine also includes a pull-out portion in which you can take along to your next show in order to challenge yourself, your friends and other bystanders.” - quoted from StrangerDangerDistro.com

Report back from SF Zinefest 2012: POC Zinester Edition! *Pt 3 of 4*

On September 1, 2012, POC Zine Project’s Daniela Capistrano attended SF Zinefest, on a mission to meet zinesters of color. This is what she saw and who she found (part 3 of 4):

Woo! Made it <3 #sfzinefest

As I mentioned previously, I showed up at SF Zinefest exactly one hour before it was over, so I didn’t have a lot of time to browse. My focus was 100% on finding poc zinesters.

Liz Mayorga of Spunky Cat Comix (click to read my interview with her) helped me track down other poc at the fest. Just one table down from her was Gabrielle Gamboa (click to read my interview with her).

After getting to know Gabrielle, I found Bob and his friends across the room. Bob makes a zine called sugar tit and he was selling a version that was collected issues 1 - 3.

Bob's zine Sugar Tit #poczines

sugar tit covers Japanese pop and rock music. I bought a few issues for the archive and then live-tweeted a (very brief) interview with Bob, who goes by  @bobosoboboso.

How Bob got into zines:

Bob said he’s never had much trouble finding zines by poc:

I read sugar tit on my flight back to NYC and it was an interesting primer on facets of Japanese music culture that I was never exposed to before. Thanks, Bob!

Bob's zine Sugar Tit #poczines

Contact Bob directly for info on how to purchase sugar tit online:

http://bobosoboboso.tumblr.com/

Daniela has to continue getting ready for the POC Zine Project Race Riot! tour (kicking off Sept 24!), so stay tuned for one more poc zinester profile from SF Zinefest. We’ll post it tomorrow morning!

If you missed the first installment with Liz Mayorga, click here. Check out our interview with Gabrielle Gamboa here.

Report back from SF Zinefest 2012: POC Zinester Edition! *Pt 2 of 4*

On September 1, 2012, POC Zine Project’s Daniela Capistrano attended SF Zinefest, on a mission to meet zinesters of color. This is what she saw and who she found (part 2 of 4):

Woo! Made it <3 #sfzinefest

As I mentioned previously, I showed up at SF Zinefest exactly one hour before it was over, so I didn’t have a lot of time to browse. My focus was 100% on finding poc zinesters.

Liz Mayorga of Spunky Cat Comix (click to read my interview with her) helped me track down other poc at the fest. Just one table down from her was Gabrielle Gamboa, who graciously allowed me to live-tweet an interview with her for @poczineproject:

Gabrielle Gamboa #poczines #poczinester

Gabrielle showed me her latest creation, Miss Lonelyhearts.

This 36-page comic is the first issue (order here!), a comic book adaptation of the first chapter of the Nathanael West novella. The Depression-era story is about a young writer hired to be a newsaper advice columnist. The desperation and sorrow of the letters he receives drives him into a deep depression, and he tries different methods of coping with the outrageous injustice of the world. But the story is also very darkly comic, which is what drew Gabrielle to it.

Here’s my mini interview with Gabrielle:

Why she likes to make zines:

Why she decided to adapt Nathanael West’s novella:

Who inspired her to start creating her own comics:

Here’s a peak at what Gabrielle had for sale at SF Zinefest:

Gabrielle Gamboa's Miss Lonely Hearts Zune #poczines


Gabrielle is doing a reading in the bay area TODAY 9/22 for Small Press Fest at The Escapist Bookstore, 3090 Claremont Ave, Berkeley, CA. 5pm. If you are in the area, please attend and support! Tell her Daniela from POC Zine Project sent you! <3

Daniela has to continue getting ready for the POC Zine Project Race Riot! tour (kicking off Sept 24!), so stay tuned for two more poc zinester profiles from SF Zinefest. We’ll post them later tonight!

If you missed the first installment with Liz Mayorga, click here.

Report back from SF Zinefest 2012: POC Zinester Edition! *Pt 1 of 4*

On September 1, 2012, POC Zine Project’s Daniela Capistrano attended SF Zinefest, on a mission to meet zinesters of color. This is what she saw and who she found:

Woo! Made it <3 #sfzinefest

I was in San Francisco for work but wanted to find some spare moments to do zine research. I actually showed up at SF Zinefest one hour before it was over (eep!), so I didn’t have a lot of time to browse. I immediately went into crazy-focused mode and sought out zinesters of color - for personal enjoyment and also to get more zines for the archive.

Luckily, within minutes of arriving, I found Liz Mayorga of Spunky Cat Comix!

This awesome chica was there tabling with her zines, including her latest creation Monstrous Love Stories.

Liz with her new #poczine Monstrous <3

I actually knew about her because I ordered some of her older zines for the archives a few weeks prior to arriving in SF. It was a great coincidence that she was at SF Zinefest too! Here are some of her answers from our brief Twitter interview on @poczineproject:

Why she made Monstrous Love Stories:

Why the Latino Comic Expo is a great resource for her and other poc zinesters:

Why Liz loves making zines:

Live-tweeting Liz’s interview was fun but it was also distracting me from her creations, so we stopped at three questions and I browsed her table.

Liz Mayorga

Liz hooked me up with a list of all the poc zinesters she knew about who were at SFZinefest. This was incredibly helpful, because even though I couldn’t meet up with all of them that day, at least I have this list for following up after the tour!

List of poc zinesters at SFZinefest 2012

Liz also gave me a flyer for Latino Comic Expo. I can’t wait to attend next year for POC Zine Project!

Latino Comic Expo flyer

Big thanks again to Liz for pointing me to new resources and being so welcoming!

Daniela has to pick up the POC Zine Project Race Riot! tour vehicle now, so stay tuned for three more poc zinester profiles from SF Zinefest. We’ll post them later tonight and tomorrow!

Meet POC Zine Project tour member Osa Atoe!

POC Zine Project Race Riot! Tour member Osa Atoe

Osa Atoe is a musician who lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is the child of Nigerian immigrants, who grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC and then lived on the West Coast for seven years. She feels that her involvement with punk is unlikely and often wonders how she ended up here. Osa likes to play music more than anything else in the world, which is why her zine, “Shotgun Seamstress,” is mostly a music fanzine. She began that zine, a DIY publication by and for black punk rockers, when she lived in Portland, Oregon in 2006.

(Read issues of Shotgun Seamstress for free online.)

Osa Atoe's book cover for the Shotgun Seamstress compilation

You can purchase all of Shotgun Seamstress as one very rad anthology from Mend My Dress Press later this month. (Osa will be selling the book during the tour as well!).

Osa is very proud to be able to say that she was in a band called New Bloods that put out a record on Kill Rock Stars before the label went completely to shit. While being in that band, Osa discovered that she loves to book punk shows and decided to begin booking all-ages DIY shows for girl bands & other folks, too, under the name No More Fiction when she moved to New Orleans in 2009. That initial love has turned into a more complicated, love/hate relationship since then, however Osa was still very much excited to help book the DIY portion of the POC Zine Project RACE RIOT! Tour.

Here is what Osa had to say about joining the POC Zine Project tour:

Why I want to be a part of the his ridiculously rad tour: Because I want to hang out with Mimi, Mariam, Daniela, Cristy and Anna every single day, every hour, every minute for two weeks straight. I need my POC punk time because I don’t get enough of it in my day to day life. Because I love to tour. I think that being able to tour & travel has helped me deal with how white punk can be because I’ve been able to make connections with black & brown punks all over the country and even internationally. I love to be on the road, I love to travel and I especially love to travel with a purpose, and what better purpose than this?

Community: Osa will be participating in ALL our tour dates: Sept 24 - Oct 7. Please help her offset the cost of participating in this tour by purchasing her zines, music and spreading the word about the tour.

MORE RACE RIOT! TOUR MEMBER BIOS

Cristy C. Road

Anna Vo

Mimi Thi Nguyen

Mariam Bastani

More bios coming soon!

Meet POC Zine Project tour member Mariam Bastani!

POC Zine Project Race Riot! tour member Mariam Bastani

Mariam Bastani is a first gen of Mexican and Persian decent, and the current Senior Coordinator of Maximum Rocknroll magazine, the longest running international punk fanzine in the world. Much of her writing in MRR deals with the relationship between ethnicity and culture in punk subculture regarding language, identity politics, imagery and sound. Playing in punk bands since she was fifteen, zines have had an active role in Mariam’s life because of their integral part of punk.

Her first exploration into zine making came in form of a collaboration with her band Condenada, an all woman, part queer, part POC, multilingual band.

Condenada track: Despierto en el Sol

DOWNLOAD a track from Condenada: Despierto en el Sol (right click and select “save link as” to download)

Mariam is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago with BA in Religious Studies and a minor in Women’s Studies, a degree she obtained at the age of 30. Before moving to San Francisco, Mariam lived in Chicago for over a decade booking shows, playing and touring with her bands, participating in the organization of Clitfest Chicago 2008, putting out records, involved in community outreach and immigration activism, helped to organize a women’s “rock lotto”, been part of several punk and women in music panels and was most recently seen in the documentary From the Back of the Room by Casey Oden about women in punk.

Along with coordinating MRR, Mariam writes for various projects and sings in her current hardcore punk band Permanent Ruin.

Permanent Ruin: Mariam Bastani's band

Here is what Mariam had to say about joining the POC Zine Project tour:

I am very honored to be part of this project because of the accessibility and anonymity of zines particularly during this time when privacy is scarce and the tracking of our every move is the norm—self-imposed or otherwise. The fact that anyone—anyone—can make a zine is the most important aspect for me.

My interaction with zines has always been through punk. Punk and DIY are inseparable so naturally zines have been part of this subculture since the beginning. In punk, most POC have been written about while zines by POC are not organized by subject or interest, but that they are written by POC, losing a very important aspect of intersectionality valuable to POC who are looking for their history and voices in this particular medium. It’s time for us track our own history in zine culture beyond punk before we get cataloged by others and, essentially, lost.

Even though zines are largely seen as either a literary art form or as a “music thing,” imagine the transformative nature that zines could have in all aspects of our lives? The power of narratives being read straight from the pens of those living them with out fear of persecution within and outside of their own community, or, inversely, the recognition of a POC voice within their community and power lying in the ease in which a zine can be created—we don’t need anyone’s publishing money, we don’t need anyone’s approval.

This isn’t about being “legit” or respected by outsiders looking in. It’s about us, POC, and this is one of the mediums in our arsenal of weapons. Bring it.

Community: Mariam will be participating in these tour dates: Sept 30 - Oct 4 (out of Sept 24 - Oct 7). Please help her offset the cost of participating in this tour by purchasing her zines, music and spreading the word about the tour.

MORE RACE RIOT! TOUR MEMBER BIOS

Cristy C. Road

Anna Vo

Mimi Thi Nguyen

More coming soon!