Call for Submissions: Issue 3!

The time has finally arrived to begin sending me submissions for Issue 3 of The Worst.  The due date is August 1, 2012.  I'm open to anything, but am especially committed to printing submissions from new contributors that represent your process around grieving--your authentic feelings, tough experiences, and the reality of how you have figured out how to cope with loss.  If you have questions or ideas, email me at theworstzine@gmail.com.  This is a compilation zine and it will become what we want it to be, so please add your voice!   Please re-post to help me spread the word far and wide!

Interview from Brooklyn Zine Fest!

Its been a busy month with the Brooklyn Zine Fest and all the orders, correspondences, and photocopying that arose before and after the event! So I am just getting around to re-posting this interview now.  Matt Carman, one of the fest's organizers, asked me some really thoughtful questions about the zine, and grief in general.  If you'd like to read the full interview, it's posted here, and excerpts follow below:

How does writing or voicing one's emotions help with the healing process?
Trauma research tells us that painful experiences are mostly stored in the non-verbal parts of our brains.  Writing or speaking one's emotions helps to literally move the storage of the memory to the verbal parts of our brains.  This helps us literally feel better because in the act of assigning words to experiences, we come to better understand their meaning.  We feel more in control and less overpowered by confusing body sensations and waves of strong emotion, because we are able to identify and describe them to ourselves and to others.  

On a more social level, grief can sometimes feel like a taboo subject to discuss, as with other painful life experiences that our society can tend to silence or stigmatize.  Within such a climate, the act of speaking in a semi-public forum such as a zine can be a very powerful antidote to the isolation we often feel, and can open up new opportunities for us to receive validation and support from others.  

Do you generally reach out to contributors, or do people come to you looking to tell their stories?
It's really a mix of both reaching out and being approached.  I do send out thousands of flyers to infoshops, cafes, punk houses and other activist hubs across the country, but I have also been known to nudge friends and members of my immediate community to use the zine as a chance to explore their grief processes through writing.  I know it's hard to send a piece of writing that pretty much amounts to spilling your deepest guts on paper to a complete stranger, not to mention the fact that it will be published in a zine (!)--not everyone is ready for that or would find it helpful as they grieve.  So I look to collect and elicit submissions wherever I can, from those who would find it helpful.  


You've mentioned that the world "attempts to capitalize on our sorrow."  How so, and how do we fight against that?
Many have heard my rant about "Hallmark sympathy cards" that don't really say anything authentic--so I won't recapitulate that here, except to say that there are many rituals we perform around grief in mainstream American culture that involve buying things instead of simply bearing witness and providing real emotional support.  We're told to "say it with flowers", but don't always learn good ways to actually talk about loss.  Fighting against that is accomplished by digging a little deeper and getting more creative in the ways that we support grievers; asking more questions, sitting with strong feelings, and rallying long-term community support.

To be sure, most people have tremendous difficulty figuring out what to say to a griever, which is probably why its very easy for the bereaved end up with so many casseroles in the fridge but not as many people to call in the middle of the night when the feelings come.  My intention is for the zine to be a way for us to dip our toes into the real feelings and experiences of grief that people can go through, at our own pace and without platitudes or trite idioms, so that we can begin exploring how we each relate to loss and use this self knowledge to create a more authentic grief praxis in our communities.  

Are you working on any other zines or writing projects?
I'm really excited about a new book coming out, in which me and my co-author and fellow zinester, Cynthia Schemmer, have contributed a chapter on parental caregiving and loss.  Its the anthology version of the zine Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities coming out in September 2012 on PM press, edited by the fabulous China Martens and Victoria Law.

Otherwise, I'm currently gearing up financially and emotionally to start collecting submissions for The Worst Issue 3 this summer.  I've been using writing to document and explore the ways the mainstream mental health industry classifies and pathologizes grief and mourning, as well as the connections between neoliberal capitalism and depression--these themes will definitely find their way into the 3rd Issue, hopefully along with many more stories of how people are making meaning out of the losses they have endured.  If you have a submission, you can send it to theworstzine@gmail.com.

2012 Brooklyn Zine Fest!

Here's an early head's up that I will be tabling with The Worst at the Brooklyn Zine Fest on Sunday, April 15th. This year, the fest will be at Public Assembly in Williamsburg. More info can be found here.

The even cooler part is that I'll be sharing a table with the fabulous Lauren Denitzio of Black and Red Eye , who created this fabulous poster to help raise money for the zine:

If you can't wait till April to get one, you can order them online from her here.

Gratitude, and Benefit Recap

Its hard to believe the zine benefit show was nearly a month ago now (!). I thought I'd update everyone on how things went and repost what I read for folks who couldn't make it. We were able to raise $600, an amount well beyond my wildest dreams and which will help me cover printing costs for quite some time. I'd like to shout out Maria Arettines, Sarah Hanks, Tommy Pico, and Cynthia Schemmer for reading such amazing pieces, and Worriers, Slingshot Daokta, and Bridge & Tunnel for bringing both music and dialogue about loss to the stage.

The Worst So Far:
Back in 2008 a reviewer described the zine as “an intense compilation of grief stories”. I think the word intense best describes the reactions and dialogue around the zine that i have been privileged to take part in since the first copies entered the world. But in the beginning, I was shocked that people found the zine “intense” because for me as a griever, it was one of the first things i encountered that matched the strength and depth of the feelings that I was going through. It didnt seem intense at all, it felt comfortable and like a relief to read similar stories. I can truly say, around five years after I distributed the first call for submissions, that the process of making this zine has saved my life. I can also say, that, As ive grown both personally and publically, I’ve learned that yes, the zine really is intense. Sometimes even downright unreadable, depending on where someone is at on a given day. However, I spend a lot of time thinking about why grief and loss is so “intense”, and kind of a taboo issue in our culture.

As I said in the zine, we live in a capitalist society that is primed to generate loss and trauma while at the same time silencing us if we attempt to articulate our experiences of disempowerment. Silencing grief and our true feelings serves the status quo myth that everyone in our society has all of their needs met by the system as it is and nothing needs to change. If everything’s fine, we should all be able to to “keep calm and carry on”, instead of get pissed and fight oppression. I’m excited about The Worst because it provides so many opportunities for us to speak the truths of our experiences, and in that truth lies the power of community.

On Support--
My dad died in 2001, and a big part of his life was music, so there are a lot of songs that remind me of him. On my birthday a few years ago, we had spent all night singing karaoke in a private room, and were leaving around 5am to go home, hoarse but exuberant at the new vocal heights we had reached together. As we entered the larger public room, I realized that a woman was singing along to L-O-V-E by Natalie Cole, a father-daughter duet that my dad and I had made up a ridiculous routine to when I was young. Exhausted physically and emotionally, I burst into tears and collapsed. At the same moment, recognizing the song and remembering that it was special to me, one of my dearest friends reached out and caught me. He shuffled me into an adjacent room and held me until I was done crying, and we eventually went outside to rejoin the rest of our friends. This simple act of memory and literally making a space to support my feelings stands out to me as the kind of authentic support I believe everyone is capable of offering to each other. The kind of authentic support I had hoped to illuminate through the creation of The Worst, and which has echoed throughout the project in emails, letters, and stories of connection in the face of loss.

In short, if you have the capacity to be a friend, you have the capacity to be a friend to someone going through bereavement. However, in order to access this capacity within ourselves, we have to talk about it. We have to write and read about it. And we have to do these things in dialogue with each other, so that we can practice new ways of offering support, so we can know when we’ve made a mistake, and so we can access creative ideas about how we might be able to try again.

Around the beginning of the summer, page 14 of issue 1 written by Cindy Crabb “went viral”. I’m still not really sure what Tumblr is or how it works, but all of a sudden, this page was Tumbling and REtumbling all over the world wide web (736 times and counting). What was on this page? It was a simple list of ways to help a friend whose parent has died. It included things like “for me to play music to you inside your room” “for me to get people to stop trying to cheer you up” “to go outside and scream”, “for me to ask you questions” “for me to just be near and silent”. Basic stuff, right? Why is this list of basic acts of care so illuminating when applied to grief? I think it has something to do with the taboos our culture places on grief and grieving. This list is so helpful because the items on it include ways to directly confront, address, and engage with the person’s experiences as they grieve. and in our culture, this is a radical notion. When we dare to break this enforced silence around grief and its associated emotions, when we name “our worsts,” we become empowered again to act, to cope, and to heal.

Looking around and seeing everyone who has contributed submissions, drove me to the printer to pick up boxes and boxes of photocopies, folded and collated and stapled, offered to play music tonight, to read, and all the faces i see of friends who have caught me when I stumbled trying to figure out how to carry this burden, I’m just left with tremendous gratitude. I’d like to thank Jordan from Silent Barn who had the show relocated mere days after Silent Barn was robbed. Eaden for letting us have the show here instead. For the Birds for believing in me and pushing me to do this after many years of not asking for help. All the readers and contributors, and bands who are here tonight--this is a collaborative project and would not exist without people taking the chance to speak, write, and read about the tough stuff.

**Extra thanks to the steadfast Virgo Kate Wadkins for taking these photos to document the event!!**

.pdf of Issue 2!

Thanks to the amazing helpfulness of my penpal Nevada, the .pdf of The Worst Issue 2 is now online for your downloading pleasure (and convenience, and free-ness!!)

Check it out here, along with Issue 1, which Nevada also kindly scanned and uploaded for me a few years ago. FYI, the zine prints on legal size paper.

Aside from being able to provide people with an online version of the zine, I am excited to have had so much help from someone I've never even met in person--a perfect example of why making zines and contributing to zine culture really does connect folks in a community they may not have found otherwise.

Save the Date! Worst Benefit Show in NYC September 3!

Hey all,
I'm excited to share that I'm organizing a benefit show in September to raise money to support the continued printing costs of the zine!! I am lucky to be a member of a vibrant and active DIY community full of skilled people who are helping me out to create a space where we can celebrate the zine, have a good time, and raise some much needed funds. The official details are below:

For the Birds Feminist Collective presents:

"Who'd ya lose & How ya Dealin'?":
A benefit show for The Worst: Compilation Zine on Grief and Loss

part of the Birds of Summer Series

Saturday September 3, 2011
Death by Audio // 49 S. 2nd St. between Kent & Wythe
L to Bedford or B62 to Driggs/S. 2nd
ALL AGES // NO BYOB
$6-10 Sliding Scale
Doors @ 8pm

FEATURING:
Bands:
Bridge and Tunnel
Worriers
Slingshot Dakota

Readings by:
Cynthia Schemmer
Tommy Pico
Maria Arettines
Sarah Hanks
Kathleen McIntyre
and more!

Tabling by:
For the Birds Collective
Birdsong Collective

Puppetry by:
Geppetta Whimsy-Core Puppet Theater

And, most excitingly, there will be cupcakes!

A year's worth of updates. . .

As you can see from the cobwebs all over this blog, I've been majorly busy the past two years with grad school. The exciting thing is I'm finally done! This summer will be full of lots of awesome things, like workshops, readings, and hopefully a benefit show so that I can keep printing both issues. Issue 2 has sold 400 copies and counting and I've gotten great feedback on it (check out this awesome shout out from radical librarian Kate Angell!! and minireview from contributor Tommy Pico, the mastermind behind Birdsong) and its available at Click Clack Distro, Riot Grrrl Distro, Stranger Danger Distro, Bluestockings Bookstore in NYC, and Brooklyn's Storefront Gallery as part of the Brain Waves collection curated by the always amazing Kate Wadkins. This summer I'm also hoping to continue publicizing the second issue and eventually scanning it so it can be available online like the first issue.

I also wrote this piece on feminism and grief on the For the Birds Blog. In social work school I was able to do lots of work exploring the pathologization of grief and mourning by the mental health industry, so I may try to excerpt some of that information and repost it. In general, I'd like to thank everyone for the support, encouragement, submissions, emails, ideas, and commitment that you all have never stopped providing me with. The zine has transformed from a paper object into a crucial community that never ceases to energize me. <3