TiNA 2010, or Casual Work Has Some Timetabling Drawbacks

So you know it already but the This Is Not Art Festival, and more specifically the National Young Writers’ Festival, kicks off this Thursday 30th September til Monday 4th October in Newcastle. I’ve attended the last 3 years, and wrote about last year’s experience here, but I think I’ve filled my quota of zine fairs for 2010 + I’m really tired + I can’t get the time off work. So unfortunately this unholy trifecta (as well as some other inconsequentials) means that the fetus and I won’t be having a Tiny Paper Hearts stall at The Sunday Fair.

But it behooves me to recommend the NYWF program, as there is some plenty interesting stuff being done by plenty interesting people – Bastian Phelan, John Stevens, Leigh Rigozzi, Lisa Dempster and Vanessa Berry to mention a few. Can I also make a couple of musical recommendations? Grouper will be playing as part of the TiNA Showcase gig on the Saturday and kyü will be playing at Soundclash on the Sunday. Both should be excellent shows that I’m pretty bummed at missing (although luckily Grouper’s playing at the Sandringham the following weekend).

Anyways, have an excellent time if you’re heading to Newcastle. Catch you on the flip side.

x Amanda

A couple of zine fairs

Kinokuniya (in Sydney CBD not Japan, obviously ha) is having another one of those super secretive craft and zine fairs May 1st, 12 – 4pm. It was advertised through word of mouth which is why no one but those who took part in the one in February (which no one heard about either) will be a part of. There will be 11 tables ($30 to book) but its all booked out, so forget that and just go and have a look/see. They will be having a bake sale in the upcoming months, celebrating Cook Book month or something, so all the Donna Hay lovers out there should probably step up and show me your casserole skills. (Why do people only cook sweet things at these bake sales, I want loafs, casseroles, pies, basically all the things I’m too lazy/scared to cook.) BUT, I do believe the zine/craft fair is somehow connected to Free Comic book day, although I think that is on the 2nd of May.

ACT Writers Centre are holding another Zine Fair this year (3rd year running) this July.
If you want to book a stall contact the office on 62629191, or email admin[at]actwriters.org.au. Stalls are FREE!

*A piece of advice, since Amanda and I did go to the first one, even if the sun is shinning in Canberra it will still be freezing, so take a blanket, extra socks and dear gods pack a sandwich! Also, you may want to bring an extra chair, as last time Amanda and I shared a seat for the entire day because one stall who had three chairs with only one is use refused to give us one, apparently her bag had a very unstable amount of radioactive material that needed a seat. I know what you’re thinking, just take it, right? Well we a lovely wimps who prefer to ponder why people are arseholes and then write about it our zines. Also I should mention, the person (?) in question was not from Canberra, everyone from Canberra (except the drunk guys (it was 11 am on a Sunday) who decided to steal a bunch our zines, oh and maybe the teens who asked us to mind their stall while they went to Kmart at the local Westfield to shop) are really nice, especially the people who organize the event, so you are in good hands if you do make the trip down.

This is the first grumpy zine related post I’ve ever written, I think its because my spam collection got deleted by the spam regulator program (whatever it is) on our blog and I’m mad about it. I’m mad about you. I’m mad about the world ladies and gentlemen.

Anyway, point is, there are some things for you to do.
We shall be doing a zine trade post soon, we’ve got a couple of lovely things in the mail, but my scanner and I are having irreconcilable differences at the moment. It’s actually a very complicated relationship – you wouldn’t understand (sleazy joke face.)

Good night/day
A very grumpy fetus

Adelaide, the city of 24 hour desserts

The 2010 Format zine fair was definitely an exercise in endurance festival-attending. Firstly, because we initially meant to attend both the Blacktown Coded zine fair and fly to Adelaide the same day (which we soon realised was too ambitious, even for us) we arrived in Adelaide after most of the Academy of Words workshops and panels had finished.

BUT we still managed to attend Literary Friction, a “RockWiz-style lit game” hosted with panache by Angela Meyer and Estelle Tang and adjudicated by the ever impartial Lisa Dempster. It was an excellent start to the evening’s festivities and was soon followed by Craig Schuftan’s ‘You Can’t Stop The Musing’ disco lecture and DJ set which was amazingly fun and lived up to its promise to “put the disco back into discourse”.

The DJ set soon descended into indoor handball, rife with interstate tensions and a refusal to accept what we thought was the universal rule of ‘played on’. Format has moved from last year’s Hindley St venue to an excellent spot at 15 Peel Street so apart from its basement handball possibilities it also has a permanent zine shop which should, nay must, be checked out.

Sunday morning found us wandering the abandoned city centre in search of coffee and setting up for the Format zine fair in a timely fashion. It cannot be said enough but there are some truly lovely people doing lovely things in Adelaide and massive kudos must be paid to Sam Rodgers for organising the zine fair and for staying up so late on the Saturday night setting it up.

We managed to shotgun a table upstairs and spent the day talking, selling, trading, burrito-eating and handballing.

I think my favourite part of the day was the machine sewn portraits wall, of which Mary-Helen and I are now proud contributors to. I was incredibly sleep deprived and so I’ve managed to forget this talented lady’s name, but she was a crafty inspiration that I desperately needed.

And that’s pretty much that. Thanks Adelaide for the trades and the conversations and the karaoke and the 5am pancakes. We’ve left some of our zines at Format if you want to get a hold of them and keep an eye on their website for more exhibitions, shows and general festivites.

x amanda

Format Festival 2010

Format Festival is an amazing D.I.Y lovefest put on every year in Adelaide. You really don’t know what you are missing out on until you go, as Amanda and I found out last year. We still think of the Academy of D.I.Y and the zine fair very fondly and rate it as one of the best festivals and zine fairs we’ve attended ever and we’ve decided we can’t keep away and are going to pop down for the zine fair! Ok, I’ll stop gushing and proposing marriage to Format Collective now and tell you the details.

Key Dates and Times:
Opening night: Sat Feb 27th from 6PM.
Street Dreams Festival: March 4th-7th
Renew Adelaide forum: Friday March 12th at 6:30
The Lisa Dempster Literature Experience: Saturday March 13th
Zine Fair: Sunday March 14th, 12 till 5

Check out their excellent website Format Collective which is updated regularly.
Facial Book Event

There is still time to book a table, although spaces are limited. E-mail the awesome Sam Rodgers at samwise27 [at] gmail [dot] com by the 27th of Feb.

Ciao!
Fetus

New Zine – Sutures

Hey kids!

It’s been a little barren on the zine landscape the last couple of months but this is the week it’s going to change. Firstly, Mary-Helen has her amazing artwork up in the Degraves St subway in Melbourne RIGHT NOW as part of the Undiscovered Press exhibition courtesy of the Platform Artists Group. There are some amazing zine artists involved so I highly recommend you check it out. If not tomorrow, then definitely at the opening this Friday 12th February from 6-7pm. I don’t want to make undue use of hyperbole but I saw the aforementioned artwork with my own two eyes, and was left a changed woman.

Secondly, Sticky’s annual zine fair is being run this Saturday 13th February in City Square from 3-8pm. Now reliable sources tell me that this is not the same as Federation Square but seeing as I have no idea about Melbourne landmarks either way…

Anyway, I’ll finally have a new zine for the fair which has been in the making since last July.

A5, 40 pages, b/w

I’m not going to lie to you, this is a personal zine of the most self-indulgent variety. Inspired by my mother’s recent move back to Lebanon, it’s a record of my parent’s memories of Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, a meditation on the role nationality has played in my life, an attempt to reconcile all the little parts of my life in light of her departure, and lots of other things as well. You can also play “See if you can find the mistake in page numbering” thanks to my butterfingers.

Of course, if you’re not going to be in Melbourne this weekend I am, as always, down with trades. Address details are to your right, otherwise I’ll put it up on Etsy as soon as I can!

And also, if you’ve read our zines and want to say hello this Saturday, please do! We (by that I mean I) may look incredibly socially awkward but we’re actually good people. Really.

x amanda [panda]

Don’t stay at home Sunday girl…

Once again, weekends spent inside with nothing to do are always followed by weekends where there is far too much going on to handle. Coming up…

In Sydney!

Saturday is the Mad Hatter’s Zine Fair from 10am to 3pm hosted by the Nowra Tea Club. We will have to unfortunately miss out on this but our sources say they had an excellent time at the previous zine fair and it sounds like a lovely day out for those outside the main metropolis. See the Facebook page for more information.

Sunday features another zine making day hosted by Susy Pow of Bird in the Hand. Rock up with a plate of food and some not-quite-finished zines for happy fun DIY times. More info here.

Plus Radio Social is running every Sunday at World Bar in Kings Cross and they’ve expressed an interest in having some more zine stalls there amongst the records, vintage and handmade fashion, bbq, art, live music and all that jazz. 10% of the bar goes towards keeping FBI radio on the air so it’s for a good cause as well. If you’re interested you can email jenny [at] theworldbar [dot] com or, once again, contact them via Facebook.

In Melbourne!

You didn’t think we’d forget you kids south of border? Our lovely friend Kelly from Catacomb Creative has been busy organising the amazing-sounding Safety in Art workshop/panel/live art/creative extravaganza which will take place this Saturday the 19th from 10am to 5pm at the Guildford Lane Gallery. You’re encouraged to bring any craft, knitting or sewing projects to work on with other crafty people and more. Check out the website for the full details, suffice it to say that the fetus and I are devastated that school work and involuntary simplicity are keeping us from making the interstate trip.

x panda

T.I.N.A. zine fair!

Hey there kids,

Just in case you didn’t get the email or have already heard about it from excited punters, the zine and craft stall registrations for the 2009 This Is Not Art festival Sunday Fair are now open!

It’s being held on the 4th of October from 12pm-5pm in the new ‘Ghetto Town’ [which is actually a new space on top of the King St carpark] and once again is free for zinemakers! They are also really interested in getting artists, crafters and designers involved as well and there’ll be live music and food on the day as well. The Sunday fair is always a fantastic part of the T.I.N.A. Festival so you should probably, definitely, get involved if you can! The fetus and I will be there with hopefully some new zines and we’re looking forward to some excellent trades.

For zine stalls contact  Susy Pow at zines [at] thisisnotart [dot] org, for craft stalls contact Anna Scobie at sundayfair [at] thisisnotart [dot] org.

Details for your diary

Date: Sunday 4th October

Time: 12pm-5pm

Place: Ghetto Town, corner of King Street and Thorn Street, pedestrian access  via Laing Street.

Price: Free for zinemakers, otherwise half tables are $20, full tables are$40, retailers are $50. $5 public liability insurance is also charged unless you have your own certificate.

x panda

Zine Age Riot zine fair and exhibition

Ok, I’ll admit it. I had a giggle at the name of this zine fair. Now that confession is out of the way, I’ll let you know that this zine fair is being presented by Sea Cell and Teeluxe as part of a larger exhibition in Byron Bay that includes both Australian and international artists . Tables are free and it looks pretty awesome so check out the contact details below if you can make it.  And if you’re a Sydney zine maker like us, perhaps a road trip is in order?

Details!

Place: 4/1 Acacia Street, Byron Bay Arts & Industry Estate

Date: Saturday, 8 August 2009

Time: 11am – 4pm

Contact: craig[at]teeluxe[dot]com[dot]au

x panda

DECOLONISE FESTIVAL

If you’ve been following the Australian google groups talk about the Decolonise Festival then you already know its happening this Sunday the 25th of Jan between 1 – 4pm. If you didn’t know, here’s the details below:

Market Day, Call for Stall holders
Sunday 25th Jan 1-4pm
Dirty Shirlows Free!

Calling all Zinesters, record labels, visual artists, badge makers, others with wares to sell (especially the weird and the wonderful) to be part of the Dirty Shirlow’s market day. It’s happeing next Sunday as part of the amazing Decolonise Festival (keep your eyes out, full details coming soon). Stall holders should be pretty much self sufficient but we can try to help with tables if there’s some around.

Email dirtyshirlows[at]gmail.com if you’d like to be involved.

Voiceworks Launch – zine babes wanted

Voiceworks are looking for zine makers to show their wares at the upcoming Voiceworks Launch on Saturday 20th of december, from 1pm till 3pm at Glebe Library. Details are as follows:

(This was posted on the zine google group tonight, but we meant to blog about it before, sorry for the lateness.)

What: Sydney launch for Voiceworks Issue 75, “Beat”
When: Saturday 20 December, 1pm till 3pm (stallholders can set up from
noon)
Where: Benledi Hall, Glebe Library (186 Glebe Point Rd)

First ever interstate Voiceworks launch (as far as I know)! There’ll
be readings, bands, open mic, zine stalls, badges, snacks, cheap
subscription offers and more that we haven’t worked out yet. So come
along to meet the contributors, mingle with the local young literati
and grab the new issue for $5 instead of $8. Free entry.

If you are a zine maker and are interested in booking a stall email
publicity[at]expressmedia.org.au or text to Rosie on 0437 571 106.
Limited tables available, zinesters aged <25 will be given preference.

Amanda and I won’t be there because we are going on a cruise to center of the earth, its hot there, but hopefully this event will be hotted up by all you zine makers out there pimping out your zines at the launch.

Adiós!