How does one create their own space within an institutionalized literary system? An introduction to and three perspectives on DIY publishing. Maxime Garcia Diaz will channel these thoughts and remarks into a live made zine.
Anna Poletti will introduce tonight's topic. What does it mean to do-it-yourself in an entrepreneurial neoliberal environment that tells us we are responsible for ourselves? This talk will consider how we might retain a sense of independent publishing as an alternative reading and writing space, and not confirmation of the demand that we build brands and audiences that can be co-opted into existing markets. Tracing some lines through the politics and aesthetics of zines and other forms of self-publishing, this introduction tries to imagine what “(But Not Alone)” might mean.
Nadia de Vries will be talking about the practicalities of self-publishing poetry, based on her own experiences with publishing chapbooks between 2015 and 2017. Her presentation will have a particular focus on the European vs. American publishing world, the pros and cons of writing in a second language, and the community-building role of the Internet.
Zinedepo is a zine library in Arnhem Presikhaaf. The library holds up to 1500 zines from around the globe dating back to the 1980s. Its mission within the Motel Spatie artist residency and project space is to approach issues like self-organization, collectivity, new technology and the current social political situation from the perspective of zineculture as we have defined it in our manifest of radical zineculture. Marc van Elburg will talk about this wonderful library.
Yael van der Wouden will be talking about her experience starting an intersectional feminist publishing house (Uitgeverij Chaos) from scratch. She'll be reflecting on the challenges of balancing ideals with reality, of creating safe spaces in full view of the public eye, and of the backlash that comes from sticking the word 'feminist' to a business.
Anna Poletti is a writer and scholar of contemporary literature. She has written widely on zines as an artistic form, and for ten years was involved with Australia’s longest running zine space, Sticky Institute in Melbourne, Aus. She teaches English and Literary Studies at Utrecht University.
Nadia de Vries is a Dutch author from Amsterdam. After self-publishing three poetry chapbooks and the Sisternhood anthology (2016), she published her first full-length poetry collection Dark Hour with UK-based publisher Dostoyevsky Wannabe in February 2018. She is currently a PhD-candidate at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA).
Yael van der Wouden is a writer and editor situated in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She's a mixed-bag child of the diaspora whose big passions in life are good stories, dogs, and makeover movies. She's also the co-founder of Chaos, an intersectional feminist publishing house run by immigrant/women of colour. Her writing & sundry can be found at yaelvanderwouden.com.
