Zine fests, workshops, and feministing!

So, it’s been a busy, productive year so far! here are a few of the things I’ve been up to recently, in reverse date order:

1. Sheffield Zine Fest!

Me at the zinefest, wearing a t-shirt designed by Tukru! (photo by Chella Quint)

Organiser Bettie with her homemade bunting – photo by Chella Quint

the venue – Daf, James and I are on the far left! (photo by Laura Bainbridge)

Last Saturday I tabled and held a workshop on zines and feminism at Sheffield Zine Fest.  The day was pretty manic – I drove to Sheffield that morning with my partner Daf and my friends Caitlin and James, and it ended up taking us far longer to get there than we expected (about 5 hours, with stops).  Next time, I’ll definitely travel up the night before and stay overnight!  So we ended up getting to the venue an hour late, which was a pain in the arse.  We also had to park in the city centre, which cost us a fortune, but we were so late that we didn’t have the time to look for cheaper parking.  Thankfully the organisers Bettie and Chella were totally understanding of my lateness, and I ended up having a lovely time at the event once I’d calmed down!

The venue was amazing – a building right in the city centre, with bright green carpets, modern architecture, and a giant slide from the top floor to the bottom floor (which I was too busy to try out – gutted!).  We were only there for 4 hours in the end, and the day went by so quickly!  First I attended a workshop on street harassment hosted by Hollaback Sheffield, which was lots of fun.  Then I put on my workshop, which went really well!  I was a bit nervous and felt that I’d rushed through it a little, but everyone gave some great feedback, and we all got together for the last 30 minutes to make some feminist minizines together.  I’d definitely like to hold this workshop again sometime!  After that, I whizzed around the stalls, forgot to ask for trades and ended up buying loads of zines instead, forgot to take many photos, and didn’t get a chance to chat with anyone for as long as I wanted to.  We then left at 5pm.  I didn’t even eat, I was that rushed (and anyone who knows me will know how unusual that is!).

I sold a fair few zines, so that was good.  I also gave out a shedload of my free minizines and flyers.  Daf and James manned the stall for me while Caitlin and I went around saying hello to all our zine friends – thanks guys  It was a really good day for me socially – I felt pretty comfortable and confident there, got to catch up with my favourite zinesters, and met some new people too  

2. Million Women Rise

Me and my friend Adele at MWR – photo by Natalie Wlock

I marched through central London on the national feminist demo Million Women Rise on 9th March.  It was lots of fun, very lively and inspiring.  I’ve uploaded all my photos to the SFN Facebook page – take a look at them here.

3. International Women’s Day

On Thursday 7th March, SFN held its International Women’s Day, co-hosted by Swansea Women’s Centre and the Swansea University Students’ Union.  I helped out a lot with the organising of the event, and volunteered to hold 2 workshops – one on zines and feminism, and the other on pro-choice activism, based on the training day I’d attended the previous week.  I also volunteered to play an acoustic set in the afternoon.  Very scary, but exciting!

The event itself was a wee bit disappointing – the SU hadn’t cleaned/tidied the venue for us, so we had to rush around for an hour or so cleaning everything beforehand.  Then the turnout was a bit disappointing, and we were all pretty frustrated about this as we’d worked so hard to publicise the event.  We ended up skipping my pro-choice workshop as there weren’t enough people to warrant running 2 workshops side-by-side.  I played some music around lunchtime, then after lunch I held the zines workshop, which went really well!  Afterwards, I joined Kat’s knitting workshop, which was very friendly and relaxed, with people of differing abilities there.

Although the event was disappointing, it was a good day for me in terms of doing things outside my comfort zone, being sociable and getting shit done, and  I felt really proud of myself for getting through it all.  I wrote a short review of the day, with photos, over at the SFN blog.

4. Goodbye Mariachi EP

EP cover

I recorded piano, vocals and bass on my friend Daniel Karl Morgan’s EP, ‘Goodbye Mariachi’!  You can read the liner notes and buy a copy at Dan’s website.

I also attended a pro-choice training day in Bristol, was filmed live on BBC3 discussing casual sexism (sort of), and released Pandora Press #5, all of which you can read about here.  Life is good, and there’s more fun stuff to come!

Winter bits and bobs.

So 3 weeks ago I performed at New Directions Theatrical Society‘s winter revue!  It was lots of fun, and my pieces went really well.  Here’s me and some of the lovely ladies from the cast in our costumes.  How good is my blonde wig? My face doesn’t look like my face!

And here’s one that’s not quite so silly:

Other news: the 4th issue of Pandora Press is FINALLY out!  You can buy a copy for £1 at any upcoming SFN event.  I’m quite happy with my cover design too:

November and December have been busy, sociable months – I’ve been struggling a little with some ongoing health issues, which has meant that I’ve been a little quiet online recently, but other than that I’ve had a lovely winter.

I have a shitload of handmade gifts to make for Christmas, so I’m probably not going to get a chance to update properly until after Christmas.  Keep your eyes open for a 2012 review, like last year’s.  I also finished the Day Zero Project last month, and need to write a long blog post about my experiences with that 2.75-year challenge.

This was a bit of a rubbish blog update.

GPOY o’clock

Fatigue, and occasional happiness.

Where does the time go?  I can’t believe Christmas is only 12 weeks away.

The last 2 months have been strange – I’ve had the occasional burst of happiness, perhaps one day where something good will happen, with long periods of drudgery, exhaustion, and inactivity in between.  I’ve had to put Spill the Zines on an impromptu hiatus because I just haven’t had the time to update it, and unfortunately I can’t find anyone who wants to help out, so I’m struggling with running the whole thing at the moment.  I’ve been trying to find the time to put together ‘Pandora Press’ #4 for about 6 weeks, and only today have I finally finished it.  It’s not even a big or a difficult job, but it just took ages for me to find the energy to sit down and DO IT.  I’ve had to take breaks from the Artist’s Way program I’m doing because I keep putting off my morning pages and my writing exercises.  I feel I’d be cheating if I didn’t adhere to the rules properly, so I’ve had to keep redoing weeks instead of moving on to the next week.  I’ve only read one book this month.  I haven’t written any new lyrics for weeks.  I’m averaging one bass practice per week.  One!  I should be playing every day!

I’m trying to remind myself that full-time work IS tiring, and that it’s okay to be unproductive during the hours outside of my job.  I still feel pretty guilty about how little I’ve achieved recently… though I suppose it depends on how you’re measuring ‘achievements’.

Hm. I feel as if I’ve written this before.

So, the best thing that’s happened to me for ages was UK Feminista Summer School 2 weeks ago.  Caitlin and I ran a workshop on ‘How To Set Up and Run a Successful Feminist Group’ at Summer School, I was so proud.

It was something that came together at the last minute, and we were woefully unprepared (mostly due to both of us being so busy with our full-time jobs).  It could’ve been better, but I think we did remarkably well considering the circumstances.  I’m very proud of Caitlin and I.  When I attended Summer School for the first time last year, I never would’ve thought that I would be leading my own workshop a year later!  Of all the wonderful things that have happened this year, this would have to be in the top 5; my confidence has increased tremendously thanks to this.

My next big event is feminist club night REVOLT in Coventry on 13 October.  It looks like a very exciting night, with riot grrrl music, spoken word acts, and zine stalls.  I’m doing a zine reading (probably from HIMH #7), and have a stall there.  Come along and have a drink with me.  RSVP here.

In other news, I bought a car last week!  It’s a beauty.

I desperately needed a car due to the poor public transport in my area – my office is 25 minutes away from my home, but the public transport is such that I have to catch 2 separate buses, which usually takes 2 hours.  I umm’d and ahh’d for MONTHS about what car to get though.  I eventually decided on a brand new car – even though it’s much more expensive than a second-hand car, I was sick of being so stingy with myself and having so many forbidden joys.  So I did something a bit reckless for the first time in my life and bought myself something extravagant that I really wanted.  I’m delighted with my decision.  It runs like a dream, and I feel so happy to have given myself such a lovely gift.  I’ll save loads of time now that I don’t have to wait around for public transport, so hopefully my productivity levels should pick up.  I’m also going to make more of an effort to get some exercise in; that should help my fatigue a little.

What I’ve been up to this fortnight:

Protesting with the SFN girls

 - Marched at Million Women Rise for the first time
An awesome day – read my photo report here.

 - Wrote another column for The Girls Are
This one is all about procrastination.  http://www.thegirlsare.com/2012/02/16/girl-with-a-guitar-procrastination/

 - Baked cupcakes with my mum, and got in touch with my inner child:

 - Co-organised and attended the joint Swansea Feminist Network/Swansea Women’s Centre International Women’s Day event
This was a fantastic day – you can read my review of the event at the SFN blog.  I bought a knitted womb from one of the SFN girls, and when I showed my mum and auntie they loved mine so much that they asked me to buy them one each too!

Knitted womb!

 - Finished building my new website!
Take a look, it’s awesome.  Built thanks to the technical wizardry of Waj.  www.catherineelms.co.uk

 - Took Toby for long walks on the beach, and took my favourite photo of Toby ever:

 - Went veggie for a week
A blog post documenting this experience will be posted soon!

 - Published the third issue of Pandora Press! 
I kinda rushed this issue a little bit so I could get it ready in time for the International Women’s Day, especially the artwork, but overall I’ve had lots of positive comments about it, so maybe I’m being too hard on myself.  It’ll be stocked in Marching Stars distro from next week onwards, or you can pick up a copy at any upcoming SFN event.

My First Vlogging Experience!

I’ve done my first vlog! It was lots of fun.  This video was originally 20 minutes long, so the editing is a bit clumsy in places where I tried to massively cut down the running time.

It was a weird experience,  to watch myself talking – I’ve always thought of myself as someone with a strange and overly-expressive face, but watching myself back, that’s definitely not the case.  :/

I babble about my current creative projects, editing compzines, writing Spill the Zines, and trying to write Here. In My Head. #10.  I feel I should point out that I filmed this vlog a week ago, and since then I feel a lot better about the Pandora Press situation having spoken to the SFN girls about it.  I originally talked about lots of other things too, but had to cut them out to keep the video short (no one enjoys watching long rambly videos, and it’s already long and rambly enough ).  Let me know what you think of it, and I’ll try to make another one in the future!

I also did a zine review vlog for Spill the Zines, which has had lots of positive feedback already.  Take a look and let me know what you think of it:

Halloween, & finally getting a job!

This Halloween was awesome!  On the weekend I went to a fancy dress party at a friend’s house, got a bit drunk, and had a lovely evening.  I spent the previous week on holiday, so had to prepare a costume at the very last minute with whatever I had lying around the house.  I ended up going as Leela from Futurama – I didn’t bother taking any full-body photos of my costume because it was so monumentally shit.  At least everyone recognised who I was!

Then on Monday, I was offered a job!  I’m now working as a receptionist; the hours are ideal, and the people there are lovely.  I was very nervous and shy on my first day today, but other than that it went really well.  So I’m over the moon right now!  However, I have had to dye my hair, mostly in order to appear more professional and less young (everyone always tells me that I look like a rebellious teenager with my purple hair and piercings; it doesn’t help that I have a young-looking face anyway), but also because I’m more than a little bored of the hair by now.  I could muster up the enthusiasm by dying it magenta or something, but I think the time has come to go back to a normal colour.  It’ll be nice to have a break I suppose, and if I ever become a full-time musician, I’ll dye it again.

Farewell, purple hair. We had some good times.

So yes, I’m now employed, and no longer have to sign on!  Being an unemployed graduate was a miserable experience, and I have so much sympathy for those unfortunate enough to still be looking for work.  My self-esteem has been slipping over the past few months as I put so much effort into each job application, each one ending in a rejection… but I’ll write about that subject in depth in Here. In My Head. #11.

Both the party and the job offer came at an ideal time – winter always brings out my sociable side.  Now that the clocks have turned back and the weather has taken a turn for the worse, the nights are longer and darker, and I really crave company to fill those long nights – parties, sleepovers, cwtching up with a hot chocolate and a film, etc.  I tend to get SAD during the winter months – I think the end of the year reminds me of dying, the way the environment decays and falls away, the fact that every year builds up towards December, only to begin the same monotonous cycle all over again in January…  That sounds very melodramatic when written down.  This is coming out all wrong.  All I know is that when winter comes around, I start thinking about my death, and what will happen to my soul, and the fear of the unknown takes over me.  Thankfully, in the past twelve months or so my mental health has improved greatly, and this year I want to avoid SAD completely if I can.  The more time I spend with good company, the less I dwell on the morbid thoughts that float through my head at this time of year.  I’ve managed to fit lots of things into  the next two months to keep myself busy and happy, including visiting my good friend Rose in Nottingham, performing at the Swansea Feminist Network fundraiser, Reclaim the Night London, Reclaim the Night Cardiff, and the new SFN radical feminist reading group.  I’m also going to try and do a few tasks from “365 Ways to Change the World“.  I’m looking forward to keeping myself busy and having lots of fun despite the miserable season.  Plus, Christmas is on its way, and nothing cheers me up more than an excuse to stuff my face and buy presents for people.

Music News: I’ve become a columnist for feminist music blog The Girls Are! I’m writing a fortnightly column about being a female musician breaking into the local music scene.  My first column is going live sometime in the next week.  Keep your eyes open for it!

Zine News: Spill the Zines is still ticking away nicely, though I’m having trouble getting people interested in writing for us.  I can handle the workload of editing the blog now, but I’m worried that it’ll slip by the wayside now that I’m working.
Also, Pandora Press #2 is on its way to the printers!  Here’s the cover I designed for the zine.  I’m not 100% happy with it, but it’s okay.

Pandora Press #2

Other News: I’ve uploaded my graphic design portfolio to Facebook.  I find myself designing posters and zine stuff for the Swansea Feminist Network a lot recently, so I thought it’d be nice to gather them all in one place, and possibly offer my services to others for a small price.  Take a look.