DCAZ and WIPs
Hello! It’s been storming today and my cat always begs us to let him outside while it rains. He’s been mournfully staring at windows and doors for the whole morning/afternoon. He used to be a street cat, so I know he knows what rain is, but apparently he doesn’t mind it. Banana Boy just wants to feel the rain on his skin. We can’t let him (please don’t keep outdoor cats, they are very bad for the local ecosystem and have a much lower life expectancy than indoor cats) but he doesn’t understand that. So he just gives us big wet eyes every time it storms.
Upcoming Events
DCAZ (Duval Comic and Zine Fest) in Jacksonville is coming up and I’ll be tabling! I’m so excited to be at another zinefest, and I’ve been cooking up a new poetry zine in preparation.
Here is the poster with all the info. It’s by the artist Janisha Ocaña (@janishacolors on instagram)
What’s cooking
I’ve got my fingers in a few different creative pies lately. Like I mentioned above, I’m working on a poetry zine for DCAZ called baby teeth // falling out. It’s a collection of 5 poems I’ve written in the last few years and then when you turn it upside down, it becomes a collage zine where I try to recreate those poems using only text from misprints of other zines I’ve made, with all the words I couldn’t find redacted. At the risk of sounding too artsy and pretentious, it’s about how I, as a writer, have personal themes and that I always default back to or words that come more naturally to me than others and it’s kind of an exploration of those themes/words and how I use them in practice. It’s as much about what I use often as what I only use once. Very introspective and exploratory for me.
I’m continuing to work on my interactive murder mystery/horror game THE OCEAN WELCOMES YOU, which has been going great. I reached the climax of the story and am working on ramping up and manipulating the tension it creates, as all good horror should.
I also started a new short story (working title is Death Story but I doubt it’ll stay that) about Bianca Allende, who’s been dying and meeting Death since she was six years old. She doesn’t stay down long though, Death always offers to bring her back to life. But the more she takes the offer, the further back from her death she gets reset. I’m not sure how long it’ll be, but judging by the word count I’m at right now, I think probably about 6-8k words.
Sticker sustainability
For the past few months I’ve been working towards printing my own bumper stickers without relying on a printing service, and I’m finally there! Through lots of research and trial and error, I finally have a set up where I feel comfortable stocking my store with stickers I’ve printed myself.
My rectangle stickers will be smaller (something my mom specifically requested haha) and now I can do shapes other than a circle, oval, or rectangle! Hopefully there won’t be any dips in quality (and I’ve tested all the materials on my own “stuck in the Florida weather” car) but they will look a little different. Nothing about the designs are changing though, besides maybe the shape.
a.c.d works archives
It’s pride month and it’s my birthday month so to celebrate, today’s work from the archive is:
CAN YOU HEAR THE ECHO? an interactive poetry game I made about being a nonbinary butch lesbian. I read a few excerpts from it at an open mic I went to recently and I think it’s still pretty good. And it only takes about 5 minutes to play!
