Zine day!
Hello dear hearts,
It is zine day! I made it before the end of February! Just!
In this letter we have: the zine launch, and some bears. For music this month, take your choice of cello. We have Apocalyptica's cover of "Nothing Else Matters", or for more ambient and longer-lasting sound, my Pandora station seeded with (mostly) Zoe Keating and Takénobu is pretty bang-on these days. I use it as writing background music a lot.
The exciting link: "What Cannot Be Held" on itch.io it's real and it's in the world! It's pay-what-you-want, including free, and please do feel free to take the free option if that's what you need. This is my attempt to give something back out of all the feelings I've simmered in the last few years. I hope it makes you feel seen, or cared for, or validated, or gives you an opening for a new feeling, or all of the above. It is what it feels like in this moment of time, and connected to the rest of time, for me, to be alive as a queer crip.
It contains sixteen(!) poems, some genre some literary some spoken-y, including some that are, in my not so humble opinion, absolute bangers.
The itch.io link will give you access to a digital-reading PDF, a booklet-formatted printable PDF, an EPUB, and a zip file of mp3 audio for the full zine, as read by me. I wanted to include a read-aloud version for accessibility reasons, but also to support the nature of this piece. There's a lot of tenderness and loneliness in it both, and sometimes you just need to hear a voice. Recording was easier than I expected - I don't perform my poems aloud often, so I wasn't sure - though also more emotional than expected. Do not ask me how many takes it took me to get through the lullaby, I will not tell.
In addition to the poems there's an Additional Reading section with some work that I love and/or that makes me feel seen or cared for, which includes not just reading but also things to watch or explore online. Reading: it's not just for books?
I do hope you enjoy it, and please feel free to share it wherever you think it may be appreciated. 💜
BEARS: I am knitting a sweater and it has the cutest dang bears, I can't even. The pattern is called the "unbearable hoodie" and while I'm not making the hood part, it does live up to its name in the unbearable cuteness level.
I am in a bears aesthetic/nonbinary bears gender situation with my life these days and I've been happy to see nonbinary bear figures getting some notice in fiction; you'll find several in the zine's recommended reading, as well as my own poem "The Childless Bear". I have a quilt on the same theme, too, with its top done, waiting backing and binding.
One last bit of bears before we go - an old favorite poem, Shweta Narayan's "The bears are working", if you need a short, sweet read to charm your day.
Hibernation season will end, someday, but hopefully I'll finish this sweater first,
t
It is zine day! I made it before the end of February! Just!
In this letter we have: the zine launch, and some bears. For music this month, take your choice of cello. We have Apocalyptica's cover of "Nothing Else Matters", or for more ambient and longer-lasting sound, my Pandora station seeded with (mostly) Zoe Keating and Takénobu is pretty bang-on these days. I use it as writing background music a lot.
The exciting link: "What Cannot Be Held" on itch.io it's real and it's in the world! It's pay-what-you-want, including free, and please do feel free to take the free option if that's what you need. This is my attempt to give something back out of all the feelings I've simmered in the last few years. I hope it makes you feel seen, or cared for, or validated, or gives you an opening for a new feeling, or all of the above. It is what it feels like in this moment of time, and connected to the rest of time, for me, to be alive as a queer crip.
It contains sixteen(!) poems, some genre some literary some spoken-y, including some that are, in my not so humble opinion, absolute bangers.
The itch.io link will give you access to a digital-reading PDF, a booklet-formatted printable PDF, an EPUB, and a zip file of mp3 audio for the full zine, as read by me. I wanted to include a read-aloud version for accessibility reasons, but also to support the nature of this piece. There's a lot of tenderness and loneliness in it both, and sometimes you just need to hear a voice. Recording was easier than I expected - I don't perform my poems aloud often, so I wasn't sure - though also more emotional than expected. Do not ask me how many takes it took me to get through the lullaby, I will not tell.
In addition to the poems there's an Additional Reading section with some work that I love and/or that makes me feel seen or cared for, which includes not just reading but also things to watch or explore online. Reading: it's not just for books?
I do hope you enjoy it, and please feel free to share it wherever you think it may be appreciated. 💜
BEARS: I am knitting a sweater and it has the cutest dang bears, I can't even. The pattern is called the "unbearable hoodie" and while I'm not making the hood part, it does live up to its name in the unbearable cuteness level.
I am in a bears aesthetic/nonbinary bears gender situation with my life these days and I've been happy to see nonbinary bear figures getting some notice in fiction; you'll find several in the zine's recommended reading, as well as my own poem "The Childless Bear". I have a quilt on the same theme, too, with its top done, waiting backing and binding.
One last bit of bears before we go - an old favorite poem, Shweta Narayan's "The bears are working", if you need a short, sweet read to charm your day.
Hibernation season will end, someday, but hopefully I'll finish this sweater first,
t
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