Rotten Zucchinis Zine #3 (re: harm in non-normative relationships)
Last Call for submissions-- December 31, 2024
Email: [email protected]
Zines take time and after a while, there are finally enough submissions to compile this zine. So I'm putting out a last call for submissions, not that I know this is happening soon!
Submissions are welcome from anyone but with several submissions already from anarchist ausitic folx that is turning out to be the focus.
What kinds of content?
personal stories, reflections, poetry, art, etc. (non-fiction; black-and-white)
for prose, approx 300-3,000 words (flexible)
Harm in what kind of relationships?
Any personal or intimate relationship that is NOT a romantic / sexual partnership or “couple” (or triad)
Any personal relationship that is somehow “outside the box”
These might include:
QPRs that are not “couples”
organising & comrade relationships or affinity groups
chosen family
roommates in a collective house
cross-generational relationships between adults that are not typical in the dominant cultural context
co-parenting situations with multiple parents who aren't romantically involved
relationships in the context of accountability or TJ work, etc.
What do you mean “harm”?
Some forms of harm are about power & control and have a perpetrator wielding that power & control over another.
Some forms of harm are not about power/control, and can be mutual (or go in more than 1 direction).
This zine is about any/all of this
Why this zine / topic?
So many of us have been doing our important relationships without any road maps or “how-to” guides, often having to fight for other people to take them as seriously as we do.
But we don’t have the tools to talk about when they're harmful or go wrong. Often we don’t even have the space to admit they sometimes do.
Rotten Zucchinis is a zine about harm and destructiveness in “non-normative” relationships.
This relational territory is messy! (It includes but is not limited to forms of violence and abuse.)
Some optional guiding questions:
What has harm (or violence or abuse) looked like in your non-normative relationships: what are your stories? How did you make sense out of this?
What is “non-normative” about these relationships?
Did society's norms promote that harm or make it harder to recognise or talk about? Did they make it harder for people to believe these harms happened (or were actually harmful)?
How do the harm from our non-normative relationships play out with other parts of our identities and lives?
How do things like power, oppression and social expectations matter?
When it comes to non-normative relationships, what do we still need to keep quiet about… and why?
Contributors will receive a printed copy of the zine but will not be paid.
The zine will be shared online for free. Hard copies may be sold on a pwyc basis (in-person).
A Haggadah for Resilience & Collective Liberation (secular Passover Haggadah)
I've been working on my own compilation Haggadah for Passover seders, year after year, adapted from pieces of other more radical and secular Haggadot stitched together.
It's a secular Haggadah, and something I always intended to share eventually.
It's still a work in progress-- and probably always will be-- but since I took the time to page-set it properly this year, I figured I'd share it.
A Haggadah for Resilience & Collective Liberation
Line numbers make it easier to share the reading.
There are also different "threads" woven throughout this Haggadah focused on different aspects of social justice, with some elements indicated by the following icons (in order of first appearance):
I finally got around to compiling some of my RA-focused writings (2020) and related ones (2018-2020) that deal with ableism into zine format for the sake of portability!
Relationship Anarchist Writings (2020) from a neurodivergent & chronically ill aroace
Formatted to be read on a screen, printed "as is" for "large print" or printed "booklet" style for a half-page sized zine.
With a bit of editorial framing (including the original context/purpose of each piece), the zine includes the following pieces:
Tension between framing things in terms of mental Health vs. Neurodivergence (in ace community) (Feb, 2018)
“Invisible” chronic illness as an “invisibly” chronically ill ace (March, 2018)
On “Monogamy” (Jan, 2020)
Exploring ableism in the context of “I choose to…”, “I’m prioritising…” and “I should…” language (Dec, 2020)
We’re excited to be returning with a call for submissions for the another issue (the third!) of the Toronto Aces and Aros group zine!
The theme of this issue is access and the way in which this intersects with asexual and/or aromantic spectrum experiences, identity, and community. Submissions should be generally based around this theme, but you are welcome to interpret the theme in any way you like.
For example, this may include topics such as:
The importance of accessibility in ace & aro communities.
Access (or lack thereof) to queer and/or ace & aro spaces.
Finding language and terminology for one’s experiences.
The overlap of disability justice and queer justice.
Or anything else you would like to talk about!
The deadline for submission is August 15. We accept both text format (essays, poetry, etc) and visual format (art, comics, etc) submissions!
More info and submission details can be found here: http://tiny.cc/TAA_Zine_Access.
to a young relative, hypothetically... about "gender ideology" and (me) being trans
TLDR:
A big part of what it means to be trans is that people around us mostly can't understand or respect us for who we are because their gender ideology is too caught up in what our bodies are supposed to be, or what we're supposed to be because of our bodies.
I'm trying to build a world where people can understand and respect you for you are, whoever that turns out to be. A lot of people don't want me to do that.
*****
One of your mothers has been telling you that gender is an illusion, that there's no such thing as being "non-binary" and people claiming to be trans are delusional. She's been telling you that the “gender ideology” of us saying we are who we are... is dangerous for you, and to all other children. In some ways she's right.
(In the ways that gender is an illusion people have made real; in the ways knowing trans people exist might undermine her control over you and let you be your own person.)
Like so many other things, gender is an illusion that people have made real through their expectations and their violence. Our society has these sacred beliefs that there are 2 types of people-- “women” and “men”-- that are fundamentally different from each other, and that parts of people's bodies determine which type of person they are. Body parts dictate what people are supposed to like and be like, what they're supposed to do (and not do), and how they're supposed to interact with other people, and eventually, who and how they're supposed to love.
Our society's gender ideology reduces what it means to be a “good person” to being either a “good man” or a “good woman,” each according to different standards of how to behave, build families and communities, and contribute to the world. That gender ideology uses shame, hostility, mockery and violence to enforce these different standards on people based on what body parts they have (or body parts they believe they're supposed to have). Their gender ideology is how they control people.
Their gender ideology has taken this illusion called “gender” and made it real, hiding behind a taken-for-granted veneer of “naturalness” that keeps people from noticing that it's ideology, not nature. But some of us challenge the “naturalness” of their ideology just by being who we are, because we exist in ways they say are impossible (and therefore wrong).
A lot of people work well-- or well enough-- under their system of gender ideology/control: they already exist the way they are “supposed” to, or living that way isn't too hard. But that's not everybody.
Some of us work well within their system, but not at the “type” of person we're assigned to be based on our bodies—as the other type. Some of us are women or men, even if parts of our bodies don't match what their gender ideology says women's or men's bodies are supposed to be. Some of us aren't women or men at all, no matter what our bodies look like or contain. Some of us take steps to change our bodies or what we look like, for ourselves, or to make it easier for other people to make sense of us in their gender system. Some of us take steps to change our bodies to express who we are, even if most people will never understand, and tell us we're wrong. And some of us keep our bodies the way they are, even though other people don't understand and tell us we're wrong.
That's a big part of what it means to be trans. That people around us mostly can't understand or respect us for who we are because their gender ideology is too caught up in what our bodies are supposed to be, or what we're supposed to be because of our bodies.
They don't know how to judge what we do, how to interact with us, or what to punish us for—what version of being a “good person” we're supposed to live up to or if they're even allowed to think of us as (good) people at all. They can't understand the people we are and they label us wrong for it. And they get angry because we don't fit in their system of gender/control. Sometimes they get jealous that we don't submit to their gender ideology and its restrictions, because they do and they know it's limiting. And they worry that if children see that we exist, then they will know it's okay to be who they are inside, even if it doesn't conform to society's system of gender/control: their children will learn they don't deserve to be punished for being who they are.
You don't deserve to be punished for being who you are, no matter what body parts you have, no matter what you look like.
I'm trying to build a world where people can understand and respect each other for who they are inside, no matter what they look like or what their bodies are. A world where men can have breasts and women don't have to, but can have beards if they want. A world where a penis is just a body part and not some mystical dangerous thing. A world where people can access the medical care they want that makes their lives better-- accessible/affordable healthcare for bodies of all human colours, sizes, shapes, and dis/abilities. But also a world where people don't have to change their bodies for other people to accept them. A world where nobody is shamed or punished for being who they are or for what their body is or for what they look like. A world where people don't have to worry about being “good men” or “good women” just “good people.” A world free of their gender ideology.
I'm trying to build a world where people can understand and respect you for you are, whoever that turns out to be. A lot of people don't want me to do that-- including one of your mothers.
I have been thinking about your "On Monogamy" papar since I read it over a year ago. - it's an absolutely fantastic analysis. I've just launched a blog for talking about aromanticism, asexuality, polyamory, and how queering relationships within these communities rejects amatanormativity. I've got multiple platonic partners, so the question of "is monogamy about sex and romance or exclusivity and hierarchy?" is very relevant. I"m working up to some bigger works on monogamy and how polyamory can include nontraditional forms of relationships (platonic partnership, etc). In the meantime, I wanted to share the blog! https://lovequeer.substack.com/
Thank you for sharing!
**
For some context, I'm not personally all that interested in polyamory, because it's so focused on romantic and sexual stuff (so much so that I've had way too many experiences in polyamorous contexts of being treated as basically a non-person because I don't do any of that).
With the burden of that, and the baggage of polynormativity and assimilationist respectability politics, I tend to stay clear of polyamory altogether, and instead focus on building networks of relationships, without polyamory's baggage. Friendship free of amatonormative framing is pretty great and can take a lot of forms people aren't used to thinking about. And things like mutual aid as aro direct action are so very much not about polyamory.
I have met some solo polyamorous folx with analyses and goals that are compatible with mine, albeit they do tend to be limited to those who are also on board with (anarchist) relationship anarchy, which has little or nothing to do with polyamory. (I'm not saying people can't do both-- they can-- but it's not easy or very common.)
If you feel it would be productive and worthy of your effort to take polyamory as a starting point, to work toward broadening polyamory's scope to become more inclusive of a range of relationships it currently keeps marginalised, I genuinely wish you all the best with it! More awareness and recognition of diverse relationship possibilities in any context will be good. That includes within polyamory.
But I wanted to put that out there because my "On 'Monogamy'" piece is not about polyamory and is actually in conflict/critique of a lot of polyamorous stuff. (There is a lot of critique and rejection of monogamy that's outside/beyond polyamory or the monogamous/polyamorous binary ... the "everything else" space.) If you like that kind of analysis, there's also the possibility of exploring it beyond polyamory (too).
I guess all I'm saying is that as you work to push the limits of polyamory, I hope you won't let polyamory limit you!
Rotten Zucchinis Zine #3 (re: harm in non-normative relationships)
Last Call for submissions-- December 31, 2024
Email: [email protected]
Zines take time and after a while, there are finally enough submissions to compile this zine. So I'm putting out a last call for submissions, not that I know this is happening soon!
Submissions are welcome from anyone but with several submissions already from anarchist ausitic folx that is turning out to be the focus.
What kinds of content?
personal stories, reflections, poetry, art, etc. (non-fiction; black-and-white)
for prose, approx 300-3,000 words (flexible)
Harm in what kind of relationships?
Any personal or intimate relationship that is NOT a romantic / sexual partnership or “couple” (or triad)
Any personal relationship that is somehow “outside the box”
These might include:
QPRs that are not “couples”
organising & comrade relationships or affinity groups
chosen family
roommates in a collective house
cross-generational relationships between adults that are not typical in the dominant cultural context
co-parenting situations with multiple parents who aren't romantically involved
relationships in the context of accountability or TJ work, etc.
What do you mean “harm”?
Some forms of harm are about power & control and have a perpetrator wielding that power & control over another.
Some forms of harm are not about power/control, and can be mutual (or go in more than 1 direction).
This zine is about any/all of this
Why this zine / topic?
So many of us have been doing our important relationships without any road maps or “how-to” guides, often having to fight for other people to take them as seriously as we do.
But we don’t have the tools to talk about when they're harmful or go wrong. Often we don’t even have the space to admit they sometimes do.
Rotten Zucchinis is a zine about harm and destructiveness in “non-normative” relationships.
This relational territory is messy! (It includes but is not limited to forms of violence and abuse.)
Some optional guiding questions:
What has harm (or violence or abuse) looked like in your non-normative relationships: what are your stories? How did you make sense out of this?
What is “non-normative” about these relationships?
Did society's norms promote that harm or make it harder to recognise or talk about? Did they make it harder for people to believe these harms happened (or were actually harmful)?
How do the harm from our non-normative relationships play out with other parts of our identities and lives?
How do things like power, oppression and social expectations matter?
When it comes to non-normative relationships, what do we still need to keep quiet about… and why?
Contributors will receive a printed copy of the zine but will not be paid.
The zine will be shared online for free. Hard copies may be sold on a pwyc basis (in-person).
Call for submissions (zine): harm in non-normative relationships (deadline extended: Jan 2023)
There’s been some interest in a new issue of “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm non-normative relationships. So I’m extending the deadline to January 30, 2023 and inviting people to share the call for submissions!
Inviting submissions:
personal stories, reflections, poetry, art, etc. (i.e., basically anything other than fiction)
What do you mean by “non-normative relationship”?
Basically any personal or intimate relationship that is NOT romantic, NOT a “couple” (or a romantic/sexual triad), and not a “standard” friendship: a personal relationship that is somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)
These could include queerplatonic** (QP) relationship but they also might include relationships people don’t typically think about when we talk of “non-normative relationships”– for example, organising/comrade relationships insofar as they are personal relationships, chosen family, roommates in a community house, etc. They might include cross-generational relationships between adults that are not typical in a particular cultural context, or co-parenting situations of multiple parents who aren’t romantically or sexually involved, etc. Could even be relationship in the context of accountability work gone wrong… So many possibilities.
If anyone is still interested, it’s going to take me a while to compile this and the piece could also use a couple more submissions, so extending the deadline for submissions to June 1st, 2023.
Right so I am in the process of making a zine on how aspec relationships inform relationship anarchy (the equalisation or emphasis of importance of all relationships, as opposed to the current social hierarchy of romantic/sexual relationships over platonic, familial, etc. ones) and would love any input fellow aspecs have on the matter.
I’m basically just sick of the covert aphobia /erasure in queer leftist spaces when we have so much to offer.
Please do get in contact and/or share this within ace/aro/agender spec spaces!
Call for submissions (zine): harm in non-normative relationships (deadline extended: Jan 2023)
There’s been some interest in a new issue of “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm non-normative relationships. So I’m extending the deadline to January 30, 2023 and inviting people to share the call for submissions!
Inviting submissions:
personal stories, reflections, poetry, art, etc. (i.e., basically anything other than fiction)
What do you mean by “non-normative relationship”?
Basically any personal or intimate relationship that is NOT romantic, NOT a “couple” (or a romantic/sexual triad), and not a “standard” friendship: a personal relationship that is somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)
These could include queerplatonic** (QP) relationship but they also might include relationships people don’t typically think about when we talk of “non-normative relationships”– for example, organising/comrade relationships insofar as they are personal relationships, chosen family, roommates in a community house, etc. They might include cross-generational relationships between adults that are not typical in a particular cultural context, or co-parenting situations of multiple parents who aren’t romantically or sexually involved, etc. Could even be relationship in the context of accountability work gone wrong… So many possibilities.
If anyone is still interested, it’s going to take me a while to compile this and the piece could also use a couple more submissions, so extending the deadline for submissions to June 1st, 2023.
Call for submissions (zine): harm in non-normative relationships (deadline extended: Jan 2023)
There’s been some interest in a new issue of “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm non-normative relationships. So I’m extending the deadline to January 30, 2023 and inviting people to share the call for submissions!
Inviting submissions:
personal stories, reflections, poetry, art, etc. (i.e., basically anything other than fiction)
What do you mean by “non-normative relationship”?
Basically any personal or intimate relationship that is NOT romantic, NOT a “couple” (or a romantic/sexual triad), and not a “standard” friendship: a personal relationship that is somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)
These could include queerplatonic** (QP) relationship but they also might include relationships people don’t typically think about when we talk of “non-normative relationships”– for example, organising/comrade relationships insofar as they are personal relationships, chosen family, roommates in a community house, etc. They might include cross-generational relationships between adults that are not typical in a particular cultural context, or co-parenting situations of multiple parents who aren’t romantically or sexually involved, etc. Could even be relationship in the context of accountability work gone wrong… So many possibilities.
Call for submissions (zine): harm in non-normative relationships (deadline extended: Jan 2023)
There’s been some interest in a new issue of “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm non-normative relationships. So I’m extending the deadline to January 30, 2023 and inviting people to share the call for submissions!
Inviting submissions:
personal stories, reflections, poetry, art, etc. (i.e., basically anything other than fiction)
What do you mean by “non-normative relationship”?
Basically any personal or intimate relationship that is NOT romantic, NOT a “couple” (or a romantic/sexual triad), and not a “standard” friendship: a personal relationship that is somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)
These could include queerplatonic** (QP) relationship but they also might include relationships people don’t typically think about when we talk of “non-normative relationships”– for example, organising/comrade relationships insofar as they are personal relationships, chosen family, roommates in a community house, etc. They might include cross-generational relationships between adults that are not typical in a particular cultural context, or co-parenting situations of multiple parents who aren’t romantically or sexually involved, etc. Could even be relationship in the context of accountability work gone wrong... So many possibilities.
More info:
In terms of context, this might be helpful:
So many of us have been doing our important relationships without any road maps or “how-to” guides— these relationships aren’t romantic relationships, but they aren’t typical friendships either. And we’ve been fighting for years to get our friends, families and communities to take these relationships seriously. We finally have some language to talk about these “non-normative” relationships existing…
But we don’t have the tools to talk about when our “non-normative” relationships are unhealthy or go wrong. Often we don’t even have the space to admit that sometimes they do. Rotten Zucchinis is a zine about violence / abuse and harm and destructiveness in “non-normative” relationships. This relational territory is messy. Some forms of harm are about power and control and have a perpetrator wielding that power and control on another. Some forms of harm are not about power/control, and can be mutual (or going in more than 1 direction).
Some optional guiding questions:
What does harm or violence or abuse look like in non-normative relationships, and what are your stories? How did you make sense out of this? (and what is non-normative about the relationship in question?)
How do the problems we have in our non-normative relationships play out with other parts of our identities and lives?
How do things like power, oppression and social expectations matter?
When it comes to non-normative relationships, what do we still need to keep quiet about… and why?
** Note: The term queerplatonic was coined and adopted with particular intentions of expressing relationships that were not romantic but that otherwise could not be named (also along with the word “zucchini, hence the title of this zine).
Increasingly (and for a long time now), people have been reshaping the language of queerplatonic in practice, deploying it for (aro) assimilationist purposes, undermining its radical potential, etc. and categorically erasing its ace-specific roots. [In 2019, Coyote wrote a couple posts presenting “A Genealogy of queerplatonic” and discussing (and fact-checking) the political mess of false-history claims in the non-ace aro world, while attempting to make sense of their political context “QPR misinformation is not an appropriate avenue for aro advocacy”.]
In short, people have been using the word “queerplatonic” to mean a lot of things that don’t necessarily have a much to do with non-normative relationships.
I’m not going to get into an rant about neoliberalism here. I just wanted to note that indeed these days, language of QP relationships is often used to refer to relationships that are “just like most people’s partnerships except not romantic or not as romantic”. (That’s not the meaning of queerplatonic in which the “zucchini” in the title of this zine was grounded.)
This zine is about non-normative relationships, under any name. By “non-normative”, I mean by definition relationships which are NOT “just like most people’s partnerships”-- instead, they are basically *anything* else.
call for submissions: “Rotten Zucchinis Zine” Revisited (06/2022)
Some recent interest reminded me that it’s been almost a decade since the original “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm in qp / non-normative relationships began taking shape. So it’s time to revisit this in a call for new submissions:
Inviting submissions:
for a zine about experiences with non-normative** personal / intimate relationships that are harmful or destructive, or include harm (e.g., violence, coercion, abuse, etc., broadly defined, including things like destructive codependence) or otherwise traumatic experiences
personal stories, reflections, poetry, art, etc.
** By “non-normative” I’m referring to things like queerplatonic relationships or other non-romantic personal or intimate relationships that are somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)
So many of us have been doing our important relationships without any road maps or “how-to” guides— these relationships aren’t romantic relationships, but they aren’t typical friendships either. And we’ve been fighting for years to get our friends, families and communities to take these relationships seriously. We finally have some language to talk about these “nonnormative” relationships existing…
But we don’t have the tools to talk about when our “nonnormative” relationships are unhealthy or go wrong. Often we don’t even have the space to admit that sometimes they do. Rotten Zucchinis is a zine about violence / abuse and harm and destructiveness in “non-normative” relationships. This relational territory is messy. Some forms of harm are about power and control and have a perpetrator wielding that power and control on another. Some forms of harm are not about power/control, and can be mutual.
Some optional guiding questions:
What does harm or violence or abuse look like in non-normative relationships, and what are your stories? How did you make sense out of this?
How do the problems we have in our no-normative relationships play out with other parts of our identities and lives?
How do things like power, oppression and social expectations matter?
When it comes to non-normative relationships, what do we still need to keep quiet about… and why?
Note: By “non-normative” I’m referring to things like queerplatonic relationships or other non-romantic personal or intimate relationships that are somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. This might include relationships people don’t typically think about– for example, organising/comrade relationships insofar as they are personal relationships, chosen family, roommates in a community house, etc.
call for submissions: “Rotten Zucchinis Zine” Revisited (06/2022)
Some recent interest reminded me that it’s been almost a decade since the original “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm in qp / non-normative relationships began taking shape. So it’s time to revisit this in a call for new submissions:
Inviting submissions:
for a zine about experiences with non-normative** personal / intimate relationships that are harmful or destructive, or include harm (e.g., violence, coercion, abuse, etc., broadly defined, including things like destructive codependence) or otherwise traumatic experiences
personal stories, reflections, poetry, art, etc.
** By “non-normative” I’m referring to things like queerplatonic relationships or other non-romantic personal or intimate relationships that are somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)
So many of us have been doing our important relationships without any road maps or “how-to” guides— these relationships aren't romantic relationships, but they aren't typical friendships either. And we've been fighting for years to get our friends, families and communities to take these relationships seriously. We finally have some language to talk about these “nonnormative” relationships existing...
But we don't have the tools to talk about when our “nonnormative” relationships are unhealthy or go wrong. Often we don't even have the space to admit that sometimes they do. Rotten Zucchinis is a zine about violence / abuse and harm and destructiveness in “non-normative” relationships. This relational territory is messy. Some forms of harm are about power and control and have a perpetrator wielding that power and control on another. Some forms of harm are not about power/control, and can be mutual.
Some optional guiding questions:
What does harm or violence or abuse look like in non-normative relationships, and what are your stories? How did you make sense out of this?
How do the problems we have in our no-normative relationships play out with other parts of our identities and lives?
How do things like power, oppression and social expectations matter?
When it comes to non-normative relationships, what do we still need to keep quiet about... and why?
Note: By “non-normative” I’m referring to things like queerplatonic relationships or other non-romantic personal or intimate relationships that are somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. This might include relationships people don't typically think about-- for example, organising/comrade relationships insofar as they are personal relationships, chosen family, roommates in a community house, etc.
call for submissions: “Rotten Zucchinis Zine” Revisited (06/2022)
Some recent interest reminded me that it’s been almost a decade since the original “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm in qp / non-normative relationships began taking shape. So it’s time to revisit this in a call for new submissions:
Inviting submissions:
for a zine about experiences with non-normative** personal / intimate relationships that are harmful or destructive, or include harm (e.g., violence, coercion, abuse, etc., broadly defined, including things like destructive codependence) or otherwise traumatic experiences
personal stories, reflections, poetry, art, etc.
** By “non-normative” I’m referring to things like queerplatonic relationships or other non-romantic personal or intimate relationships that are somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”-- especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)
Note: this relational territory is messy. Some forms of harm are about power and control and have a perpetrator wielding that power and control on another. Some forms of harm are not about power/control, and can be mutual. This zine is not about “innocent victimhood” for so many reasons (no least of which is that “innocence” always creates a hierarchy of “legitimacy”... usually along racial and other lines of structural power) AND it will also not publish anything glorifying harm people do.
If there are enough submissions, I’ll do a new issue. But if there are only one or two submissions, I’ll update the combined volume for a new 1-2+ edition (and with the interest I have already fielded, it’s almost certain *something* will happen).
Email me at: rotten [dot] zucchinis [at] gmail [dot] com
(check in by end of June 2022)
(Yes, this blog was originally named for this zine, as I had originally created this tumblr as a place to post calls for submissions after trying to share the call for submissions without one.)
What happened to the original Rotten Zucchinis Zine?
I'm not sure what you mean. The original "Rotten Zucchinis: The Zine" is still available, along with Volume 2 and the combined Volume 1-2 edition. All 3 zines are available in 2 different pdf arrangements-- one with the pages in order to read on a screen and the other with the page scrambled for printing. (I floated the idea of a 3rd volume but I never seriously pursued one.)
Oh, there just didn’t seem to be much interest in a 3rd issue/volume at the time and by that time I was also working on another zine about feeling silenced in / alienated from ace spaces (”f-ace-ing silence”). And any kind of comp zine project (where various people submit things) is tricky-- there’s a reason why so many calls for zine submissions don’t actually result in zines. Zines that deal with experiences of violence or abuse are especially challenging... for various reasons.
Having said that, it’s now been a few years... and someone just emailed me about this, so it might be time to gauge the interest again... If there are even one or two pieces that people would like to contribute at this point, I could edit them into the combined volume, for an updated edition fairly easily.
Call for submissions?
Anyone interested in contributing to a zine about experiences with non-normative** personal / intimate relationships that are harmful or include harm (e.g., violence, coercion, abuse, etc.)
personal stories, reflections, etc.
** By “non-normative” I’m referring to things like queerplatonic relationships or other non-romantic personal or intimate relationships that are somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”
Email me at: rotten [dot] zucchinis [at] gmail [dot] com
(check in by end of June 2022)
