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SKEAR ZINES CALL OUT 2025!
We took a break last year, and this year all I can think about are first aid kits, those small packets of preperation for the injuries that come from this world.
We want to see what kinds of first aid kit can be made from words and paper. What kinds of care for self and community and planet can exist in that space.
We also want to see what different physical forms a zine can take, and I'm so excited about what we've decided on!
This year, we will publish one 'traditional' folded paper zine, one zine in a matchbox (very useful tool for light, warmth, cooked food), and one zine that is a postcard (another very useful tool, this time for connection unmediated by the digital gated realm).
Closing date for submissions is 13th June 2025, so get yourself thinking on care, and first aid, and come meet us for adventure!
LINK TO MORE DETAILS: https://skearzines.wordpress.com/2025/04/11/call-out-2025/
We took a break last year, and this year all I can think about are first aid kits, those small packets of preperation for the injuries that come from this world.
We want to see what kinds of first aid kit can be made from words and paper. What kinds of care for self and community and planet can exist in that space.
We also want to see what different physical forms a zine can take, and I'm so excited about what we've decided on!
This year, we will publish one 'traditional' folded paper zine, one zine in a matchbox (very useful tool for light, warmth, cooked food), and one zine that is a postcard (another very useful tool, this time for connection unmediated by the digital gated realm).
Closing date for submissions is 13th June 2025, so get yourself thinking on care, and first aid, and come meet us for adventure!
LINK TO MORE DETAILS: https://skearzines.wordpress.com/2025/04/11/call-out-2025/
Pacific Trash Vortex: disabled eco-wisdom vs the high speed death cult
The audio version of my essay is here! Click here if you want me to read it to you. I loved writing this essay. It features: my garbage obsession, brain fog, crip time, and strategies for survival, among other things. I wrote it in the midst of a ton of medical stuff, without any energy to try to be smart, polished, clever or wise. I had to just write unadorned. And stuttered. A disabled aesthetic.
I hope the audio solution to multiple voices works ok for your ears. If you'd rather read the text, you can do so here in the original ebook.
Thank you Commonword for commissioning this and making the accessible audio version possible. And huge thanks to Martin De Mello, whose close editorial care made this essay possible.
The audio version of my essay is here! Click here if you want me to read it to you. I loved writing this essay. It features: my garbage obsession, brain fog, crip time, and strategies for survival, among other things. I wrote it in the midst of a ton of medical stuff, without any energy to try to be smart, polished, clever or wise. I had to just write unadorned. And stuttered. A disabled aesthetic.
I hope the audio solution to multiple voices works ok for your ears. If you'd rather read the text, you can do so here in the original ebook.
Thank you Commonword for commissioning this and making the accessible audio version possible. And huge thanks to Martin De Mello, whose close editorial care made this essay possible.
'My Body is Not the Enemy' - photo by me
Rx: Medicine from the Cripothecary - an audio tapestry of exhausted LGBTQIA+ voices
Listen: I have some chronically exhausted audio literature for you, laid carefully on a sound bed of breath: click here with headphones on for the ASMR head tingles.
It's part of the Disbelief Disregard AHRC-funded research project at University of Liverpool which includes new writing and art made by people with energy-limiting conditions (with particular focus on Muslim women and people of marginalised genders - some of those who are often ignored in medical research), imagining what care could look like if it was what we needed. It has truly been an honour being part of this. All my hats off to the incredible all-disabled research team who made it possible.
You can find all the pieces we made with people with energy-limiting illnesses here - scroll down to our names. Comix, zines, essays and more by some of the smartest artists I know working in this area: khairani barokka (okka), Louise Kenward, Khisra Ahmed and Julian Gray.
Listen: I have some chronically exhausted audio literature for you, laid carefully on a sound bed of breath: click here with headphones on for the ASMR head tingles.
It's part of the Disbelief Disregard AHRC-funded research project at University of Liverpool which includes new writing and art made by people with energy-limiting conditions (with particular focus on Muslim women and people of marginalised genders - some of those who are often ignored in medical research), imagining what care could look like if it was what we needed. It has truly been an honour being part of this. All my hats off to the incredible all-disabled research team who made it possible.
You can find all the pieces we made with people with energy-limiting illnesses here - scroll down to our names. Comix, zines, essays and more by some of the smartest artists I know working in this area: khairani barokka (okka), Louise Kenward, Khisra Ahmed and Julian Gray.
about
I'm a UK-based writer and one third of the Skear Zines editorial trio. I've performed at many live events across the UK and beyond, solo and in collaboration with other writers, musicians and visual/digital artists. My stories have featured on BBC Radio 4 and in Short Fiction Journal, among other places, with poetry appearing in numerous anthologies and magazine, and my collection of short stories about the messy overlap of aid work and war (Jebel Marra, Comma Press 2015) was described by the Guardian as 'muscular', and 'exceptional' by the Irish Times. I co-created and edited the TransBareAll anthology of work by trans writers and artists, and the accompanying podcast of the same name.
You can find my writing on class, disability, and climate crisis in both text and audio at Commonword/Cultureword, and part of my novella Occupy Manctopia - set in the belly of Manchester’s housing crisis – is out now in anthology with Comma Press, in The Book of Manchester.
You can find my writing on class, disability, and climate crisis in both text and audio at Commonword/Cultureword, and part of my novella Occupy Manctopia - set in the belly of Manchester’s housing crisis – is out now in anthology with Comma Press, in The Book of Manchester.
Find me online at: