'We Are Irreplaceable' Collaboration & Writing Elsewhere

It's been dead silent around here for the past couple of months; I've been working on a couple projects that have taken me further away from my messy blog. I've also gone through two bouts of illness this winter (remarkable for someone who doesn't get sick often!), seen two babies born in my doula work, and transitioned out of one job and into another. Someday I'll get around to recapping everything in its full rich detail, but for now I'll put down a roundup of the collaborations and writing I've been doing elsewhere around the internet:

My long-time friend, the brilliant artist Jess X. Chen created these two posters using my face as a model and collaborated with me on the caption text. They are for the #nobannowall protests that occurred after the immigration ban earlier this month. They are available for download at justseeds.

'To Allah we belong and to Allah we return’ is a rough translation of the dua said at someone’s death. Blessed is this temporary cycle. We are part of a long lineage, a history of others who have dreamed us into being (as Walidah Imarisha puts it in the introduction to Octavia’s Brood). We are ourselves complete and also part of this larger whole and while we are impermanent, we are irreplaceable. Remember that you have the hands of ancestors at your back, and the duty to dream of the generations ahead of you.

I've written a piece called 'Life After' about the Tr**p election and what it means for us as vulnerable populations. Check that out at Fragments Magazine.

The Theo Westenberger Estate blog is featuring a piece about my experiential research process from my time in Bangladesh -- it's called 'The Accordion Exercise' and talks about some of my novel-writing process.

Finally, next month I will be in NYC working yet again on the lovely Feminist Zine Fest! If you're in the city, please come through and support independent writers and art-makers from across North America. More info at our website and Facebook page.

Incidents and Inspirations

I've had a bit of downtime from working on events -- the last major one was the huge success of the Feminist Zine Fest (you should definitely check out the photos and interviews with our rock star zinesters that I put up). It's taken me a few weeks to recover from having worked on an event where we estimate that, conservatively, 350+ people showed up and there were 40+ tablers, two readings, and a workshop to wrangle. I'm going to miss the team this year while I'm out traveling! They're really the ones that made this whole thing possible.

Apart from being wiped out though, I have been going through old notebooks to look for the gems of my writing that I might want to craft into stories. I write a lot. A lot. Looking through my old files on my computer and the number of notebooks I go through in a year, hardly any of it actually gets processed into useable work, for the obvious excuses: I don't have time/energy/interest or this is hard/I'm not a good writer/someone's said this before/[insert predictable self-doubt]. But the exercise of going over things has brought to my attention that I actually, sometimes, like my writer voice. And that I actually have one, something that my teenage self couldn't really imagine.

It's brought up a lot of interesting memories as well. Like the time when I printed out nearly 170 pages of written material and presented it to my middle school English teacher for his review. The man asked me "what themes do you have?" When I couldn't answer him, he smiled, gently took the binder, and I never saw it again. But I was undeterred. That same year I had the audacity to send out big tan envelopes with the manuscript (unedited) to agents and editors, all of whom I'm sure thought I was quite cute to at 14 be sending a novel in for review.

I'm interested in getting some of that confidence back. The unintended consequences of having grown up and gone through a creative writing program at college means that I study my words carefully. I worry about things that don't really matter. Essentially, I stop myself before I start.

Lately I've been trying to force myself into genres that I don't particularly like because they seem 'more important' somehow. Sure, I'm an activist and do a lot of other great work for the world, but I realized that even if I got paid to write about those experiences, it would still come out closer to fiction. But sometimes it feels like there's a huge pressure to have my work be useful for society, as LuLing Osofsky says so well in this episode of The Rumpus' Make/Work podcast.

Other people do critique well. And it's fine to not be them. There is space for all of us out here.

Aside from FZF, it seems like this past month was the Month of the Interview for me -- check out the Barnard Center for Research on Women's podcast where I talk zines alongside my lovely zine co-conspirator Jenna Freedman. And also take a look at this video from the a fundraiser I participated in called Colors of Healing, a self-care bazaar where we sold our handmade things to send young queer/trans people of color to the INCITE conference this year.

Come to the NYC Feminist Zine Fest on March 7th!

It feels like it's been eons since last Monday. Last Monday, I was attending a birth and still adjusting my sleep schedule from being a creature of the night back to being a creature of the day. I was also running around trying to respond to a subpoena from the Bronx juror system (more innocuous than it sounds) and fix my broken phone all while doing my regular duties. But! It all got finished and we had a lovely event on Saturday that made up for all the madness.

Organizers of the NYC Feminist Zine Fest really want you to come join us - our creepy hands and all.

Last weekend we had a successful zine reading at Bluestockings with all the organizers of the Feminist Zine Fest, which is coming up this weekend (yes, I did somehow manage to get a draft of my zine down on paper and to keep up with the organizers' tasks!). You can find me, my new zines, and a crew of amazing tablers and organizers there; here are the deets in case you want to check it out:

Saturday March 7th from 12-6pm
Barnard College, 4th floor of Barnard Hall (main building when you walk in)
We have zine readings, workshops, a library tour, and (of course) our tablers! Check out further info at the FZF NYC website.

A Playlist for the 2014 Feminist Zine Fest (in NYC this Saturday!)

And now, for an announcement:

This weekend is the NYC 2014 Feminist Zine Fest! I am a proud planner and schemer (the Pressure Cooker on our team), and I would love to see y'all out there.

Come out to the James Room (4th Floor, Barnard Hall) at Barnard College on 116th and Broadway between 1-6pm this Saturday, March 1st to trade zines, listen to zinesters read their work, and just be old school rad with us!

And, to pump you up even further, I created a mixtape in partnership with Homoground to get us charged for the fest! Check it out by clicking the picture above or this link right here.

See you Saturday!

On Location: Feminist Zine Fest

I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning. I read part of my poetry assignment from the confines of a comforter cave, waiting for the last possible moment before I had to rise, dress myself, and get on the train to the Feminist Zine Fest. It wasn't out of lack of excitement, oh no - rather, I had just arrived back from a psychology conference in DC the night before and I was unwilling to give up the creature comforts of my bed to go anywhere.

But I'm so glad I did.

When I arrived at the Feminist Zine Fest at Brooklyn Commons an hour or so later, the place was just starting to fill in. I set up my zines (including the new one that I put out just in time for the fest, Hairstory - pictured above!) on a table near the door, next to my boss Jenna and her plethora of zine library-related works. My roommate made the rounds to the different tables as I munched on a granola bar, waiting for people to arrive.

And arrive they did - after just a half hour, the place was buzzing with alternative press addicts, all of them displaying amazing fashion sense and a love for zines. By 2pm, they were bottlenecking near the door and there was great excitement as the first zine reading started, featuring the editors and a contributor (Jenna Freedman, my zine library boss extraordinaire!) of a new book on zines in libraries.

Throughout the day, I met all the different zinesters that I knew way too much about due to having read their zines in our library collection. I would see them, my eyes would get wide, and I would shyly say that I loved their work. Also, completely out of the blue, I met Cynosure, the wonderful blogger that I have been reading for the past year. There were Bluestockings employees right across from us and chill people doing artwork and all types of representation. Every few minutes, I would gasp, fangirl-like, at something new and wonderful that came into my view. In a perfect world, I could keep connected with all the people I saw and met that day.

How many people got their hands on my zines, you ask? I started with somewhere around 90 and ended up with just 8 little zines coming home with me that afternoon. Let's call it like it is: an amazing success! I am so glad to have been able to be part of it.

Interested in other zine-related things I've done? Check out the tutorial How to Make a Micro-Mini Zine and the releases of my other zines on Archive.org.

On Location: Active Minds Conference & Feminist Zine Fest

This weekend, I will be all over the place.

First, I am going to the Active Minds conference to present my preliminary research on Asian American women in college and their attitudes towards mental health and counseling. The conference is going to be in DC, so I'll be getting up very early and coming back very late from said journey, but it will be a great experience. A full recap (and brief on my research) will come next week!

Then Saturday, I will be tabling with the Barnard Zine Library at the Feminist Zine Fest in Brooklyn! Come say hi and get a zine from me, if you so desire (and are in the NYC area).

Anyway, on that note, regular blogging will resume Monday, when all these things are through. Enjoy your weekend!