Calling all feminists.
The New Paltz Feminist Collective is seeking last minute submissions to fill the blank pages of their upcoming zine titled Women of Age.
Club member and third-year English major Amanda Lipari said the Collective felt creating a zine was an interesting and creative way to show the culmination of their work throughout the semester.
“Zines are a really cool way to interact with the student body. They are fun to read, easy to hand out and carry around,” Lipari said. “This semester we wanted to create a zine…to have a tangible representation of our work. Putting on programs [is] great and very important, but it is nice to have something that is more permanent.”
The Collective decided on the theme after discussing several topics they wanted to include and figuring out how to put them all into one cohesive zine, first-year education major and club member Caitlin O’Connor said.
She said some members wanted to write about subjects such as women and technology, while others wanted it to focus on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which led them to decide on a timespan-like focus.
Lipari said the decided theme will garner a greater variety of submissions and allow students to interpret it as they choose.
“The theme ‘Women of Age’ really broadens the scope of submissions and topics to discuss in the zine,” Lipari said. “We encourage artists and writers to submit work that reflects an individual, thoughtful interpretation of feminism.”
Lipari said the interpretations could be criticisms of the feminist movement, poems, stories, observations or expositions regarding a certain wave of feminism.
“We were really searching for what feminism means to our fellow students and how that meaning has been cultivated and changed through the ages,” Lipari said.
Thus far, O’Connor said they have received poetry, short essays and stories and artwork relating to how women have changed and evolved, as well as other various topics and “general feminism.”
She said the content is “very broad gender studies kind of stuff,” including pieces addressing coming out, transgender issues, menstruation and the female body.
Although they have received a number of submissions, the Collective still has a few empty pages to adorn with feminist prose or art. O’Connor said they would love to see more “short little blurbs,” along with more of people’s favorite quotes.
Anyone interested in submitting should try to by the end of the week, O’Connor said, as they are looking to complete the zine soon. All submissions should be sent to newpaltzfeministcollective@gmail.com.
While they still have more work to do, O’Connor said they have begun putting the zine together and have the foundation.
“It’s basically just going to become a big arts and crafts project because you have to make one and then you have to photocopy,” she said. “We basically took people’s submissions, glued them to other pieces of paper and made photocopies of stuff, so right now we have a base, but it’s just scrapbooking, gluing, taking little pieces of magazines and putting those in there.”
Though the Collective has not finalized plans, O’Connor said they will possibly distribute them at a not yet scheduled abortion speak-out at the end of the semester.
O’Connor said the Collective’s goal is to educate people on feminism to show it’s not a “big scary topic that everyone should put down.” She also hopes the zine emphasizes the validity of people’s thoughts.
For Lipari, it’s about showing the differences that exist in feminism and having everyone take something that is their own from it.
“We hope to stress the diversity of the feminist movement. Feminism is different for everyone and that will be reflected in the individuality of each artist’s work,” she said. “People should have fun reading the zines. Who doesn’t love some good feminist literature and art?”
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