Just added to the Stranger Danger catalog:

(meta)paradox #5 -- Olivia has been a longtime supporter of Stranger Danger & so it’s sweet to be carrying her zine in the distro. She calls this one “the neuroqueer issue,” with writing on “the intersection of queerness and neurodivergence (having a neurology that diverges from what is considered “normal”).” Olivia uses her writing to explore being queer, femme, Latina, atheist, autistic, & panromantic asexual, and how these parts of her identity interact with and influence one another. There’s so much in here that it would be impossible to recap it all in this description. It’s very personal, very text-heavy, & very long -- 88 pages! You’ll be reading this one for days.

Secondhand Emotion #2 -- I really loved the first issue of this zine & so I was thrilled to discover that the second issue is also incredible. It carries the subtitle of “navigating the politics of attraction in late capitalism through a nihilistic feminist lens” & the writing inside is candid & powerful. Here Cassandra looks back on past relationships (& her actions once they ended) in order to dig through feelings about race + location + desirability + social capital. In doing so she works through difficult questions & realizations about herself, her past partners, and her community. This is one of the best zine series being published today, I promise you.

Just added to the catalog:

The Sinew That Shrinks #2 -- I am so into the pieced-together style of Jenna’s issues of The Sinew That Shrinks. She instructs the reader to “Read this zine lie a scrapbook, like a collection of fragments” as it is very much just that -- an assemblage of text, art, & photos from both Jenna & others. And yet it feels like a whole project, a document born out of traumatic histories & the ways we capture and archive suffering. I want more zines like this, zines that reveal themselves in small bits to construct something larger, zines that erase the division between art zine & text-based zine and instead mend the two together. Get this and find yourself coming back to it time & time again.

No Better Than Apples #11 -- I keep gushing over Kate’s zines but it’s because they make me feel things, every damn time.This one covers the past year of Kate’s life, and while I can tell you that she spills stories of tour stops & a sick parent & nerve damage & buildings on fire, it’s really about other things like learning that it’s okay to lean on your friends & trying to make peace with your body when it has turned against you & the ways we find it in us to push through life’s hardest, most trying times. This is a zine full of tiny moments that aren’t so tiny at all, laid bare with a gorgeous, striking layout. I am begging you to get this. You won’t regret it.

Secondhand Emotion -- Finding this zine submission in the distro’s po box is one of my true zine-related highlights of 2015. Subtitled “a zine about love, anxiety, gender, race, and feelings,” Cassandra explores her anxiety around romantic relationships in a very open & authentic way. She digs through her familial relationships, her friendships, and her past romantic relationships to examine the complicated feelings she harbors about being a black feminist woman who seeks love. This zine is super text-heavy, with pieces on the Black Lives Matter movement, problematic white feminism, & tattoos as self care filling up the second half of its pages. I can’t wait to read the forthcoming second issue. Highly recommended.