Hi everyone!
Hope you're all doing well, just thought I'd give you an update as there
was a last-minute meeting last night to discuss Book 28's project which we
said we would be happy to participate in when Emily and I met up with them
last month.
For anyone that didn't get a chance to read the notes from that meeting
basically the idea is that Book 28 want to launch an 'anti-prize' as a
statement against the Polari prize <https://www.polarisalon.com/> due to
the founder of that award scheme's relationship with people like Julie
Bindel and other trans-exclusionary radical feminists.
It got mentioned last night by Small Trans Library members that they
weren't familiar with the people involved (neither was I). Book28 contacted
the founder of the Polari prize back in May and have not received a
response. We discussed safety if this was a discussion that got moved to a
public social media space and a majority felt that it was more important to
ensure that collective members of all of our libraries were safe. Therefore
the anti-prize will go ahead but framed as an alternative to the prize (as
we don't want to shame any authors who are submitting for the prize - there
is a monetary award as a result of winning), and as we have no money to
give, it will be more of an awareness raising project of recently published
and centrally queer books.
I made it clear that we are currently in the process of doing a similar
thing already through our Instagram account, highlighting members of our
collective and the collection, so didn't want our participation to get lost
in the mix.
So here's what happens next:
- Isadore will be sending us templates, a logo, and ideas for a hashtag
within the next week or so
- We have a think about 4 recent zines we have read that we would like to
highlight as part of the project - if anyone has a particular zine they
feel strongly about submitting then just let me know and I'll compile a
list and if we get more than 4 then we can have a chat maybe at the QZL
picnic about it?
- We'll be cross-promoting each libraries submissions during the week
commencing 5th July
Kyle
*Queer Zine Library*
Celebrating radical LGBTQIA+ self-publishing.
*W*: www.queerzinelibrary.com
* I*: @queerzinelibrary <https://www.instagram.com/queerzinelibrary>
