S9E6: Iris of Textile Tales

Hello and welcome back to Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines! In this episode, my guest Iris and I touch on sexual assault, so just wanted to give an up front content warning. Iris is UK-based and makes a zine series called Textile Tales, which focuses on the radical history of textiles. We talk about her work and research, the zine scene in the UK, and more!

Find more of Iris' work:

https://www.instagram.com/thestrawberrythief

Find more of my work:

http://linktr.ee/LNGRMSTPLR

http://instagram.com/maiiira.png

Chat with me about your zines by filling out this form:

http://tinyurl.com/letschatLAS

Thanks for listening!

Logo by Miquela Davis: @ghostsb4breakfast

Intro/outro:

Who Likes to Party Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello, and welcome back to long armed staple podcast of the meetings. I'm here at the um I just want to give an upfront content warning for this episode. We will be talking about sexual assaults. So take care. Um and yeah, so this episode, I'm joined by Iris Stovell, who is an embroiderer, researcher, and zine maker from North Essex, England. She focuses on the radical history of textiles, how they can be used to communicate, and how they have been useful in political movements. Her main topic of research is how textiles can be used to portray and express experiences of sexual assault and rape. This is an ongoing project for her and is also the subject of her first zine, Women Weaving Stories of Sexual Assault. Her second zine was a collaborative piece of writing about Syrian embroidery and a mysterious coat that came into her possession. Iris loves to learn more about textiles and their connections to humans every day and hopes to pursue this professionally in the future. Hello. Hi. I think you're my first ever guest, not from North America, so this is really exciting.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Okay, I feel very honored. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Um, so I have two questions. I guess. Which came first, zines or textiles, is my big first question.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

For me, first it was textiles. So I got into embroidery back in 2024. I got into Titries, which is Palestinian embroidery. That was my main focus. And then in 2025, I did my A levels, which is like I'm not sure how to describe them to somebody that's not from England. They're just like these big exams. I started them and I did a 5,000-word piece on women who embroidered in incarceration. And one of those stories was about a woman called Lorena Bulwer who made these 12-foot-long quilts. And in one of them, she wrote, My name is Lorena Bulwer. I was examined by this man and found to be a properly shaped woman, which was it's theorized that she meant she was assaulted, and that sort of started this interest in sexual assault specifically.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

And then zines came after that?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah, so once I'd submitted my uh 5,000-word piece, I was like, this is a topic I'm really interested in, and there's no research on it, and I want to share what I've learned, and I found that zines were a cheap and easy way to share that information.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yeah, how did you uh come across zines?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

So I started making zines a couple of years ago, not to sell, just as a way to get my feelings out. So I am autistic, and I started making zines around the time when I was actually assaulted. Uh so I would make these tiny little zines, and I would draw myself as a cat, and it was just to express my feelings. So I did that a couple of years ago, and then I think I just saw a lot about zines and textiles, and I was like, wait, this could be a really great idea and a great way to get my knowledge out. So that's what I started doing, and I just love them now.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

That's awesome. I have like, because I'm also I work in textiles, um, not professionally, but like as a as a really intense hobby, I would say. And so I think there is a lot of crossover between zines and textiles. Um, and I think that your research is really interesting. Like, it's not something that I had ever really thought about. Like, I know that there are many, many, many stories of women being sexually assaulted and kind of sharing their stories, but I had never thought about it in the context of like sharing it through textiles.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, same. And it was it was when I found this one story, and then I thought back and I found some other stories. So my first zine is made up of six stories. I'm still sort of on the lookout for more. But firstly, because it's sexual assault and rape, it's not usually not it's not really taken seriously throughout history, and secondly, because it's embroidery in textiles, it's made by women, it's not taken seriously throughout history. So they're quite they're quite hidden in a way. You really have to delve into stories and archives to find them.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

What is your I guess what is your process for researching this kind of stuff and how does that translate into making the zines?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Honestly, uh for the start of the my sexual assault scene, I just googled stories of women and sexual assault through embroidery. So I knew that there would be examples in mental institutions. So I have Lorena Bulwer, who was incarcerated in an asylum and stitched, and I also contacted the author of a book I love called Stitching Freedom, it's Dr. Isabella Rosner, and I was like, uh, would you be able to have a look at my zine and what you think about it? And she was like, This is amazing. Also, here's some other examples. So I managed to get some examples through her. Um, I had a look at myths too, so I've got two Greek myths in there because I wanted to expand it past women who have existed and also women who've existed in stories and how they've used it. So a lot of it is looking at can't think of the word, um just places in a way. So you know uh it might be in a concentration camp or an internment camp or somewhere where you've already been stripped of your rights, then you know that something like sexual assault or might have happened and the woman might have done their embroidery. So I have one from a young woman who was taken to a brothel, kidnapped to a brothel, and she stitched on a tiny handkerchief about her experiences, so things like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Yeah, it's it's cool that you included both fictional women and like real women, because you know, if there are ancient stories about these things happening, like unfortunately, that means there's precedent for it to happen in real life. Um and so yeah, it's it's just it's so complicated. Like, I imagine it's very heavy, like I imagine there's very heavy feelings involved in all of this research, um, especially as someone who like has that experience and also is into textile, like into the medium.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

It it was hard in a way, but it was also sort of a way for me to process it myself because before I made the zine, I'd never really talked about it at all. And then when I published the zine, I would get comments from people that were like, I also used embroidery as a way to help me with my assault and stuff like that. So it was really lovely to see other people who had gone through the same experience, and also for me to feel confident to talk about my experience.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

So really cathartic, essentially.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

That's awesome. Um, yeah, some of these, I guess we can start talking about the zines themselves, but a lot of the looking through, like, you had really good photographs uh and images of the the textiles, and like it was just it was so intense reading through some of these stories. Um, and like Lorena Bulwer, who you mentioned before, um, I was particularly drawn to her story, like it's just I was trying to think of words before this interview that weren't just like sad, intense, upsetting, but like you know, it's all of those things, but it's so powerful that she was able to share what happened to her, and it also like even just being being someone who's into textiles and knowing how time-consuming and difficult it is to embroider, at least for me, like wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

I managed to actually see Lorena Bulwa's uh quilts a couple of months ago. I got to visit them, and seeing them in person was incredible because not only is it it's not just like one layer of cloth with embroidery on, she's layered up the cloths and it's it's quite literally a quilt. But the sad thing about her story is the man who we think might have assaulted her, he was indicted or arrested for the assault of a 14-year-old as well. He then went on to marry Lorena's sister and take her sister with him to America. So it's like she was assaulted by this man and then had her family taken from her. And this is just my opinion. Lorena was about 50 when she was sent to an asylum and she did the stitching. I think it could have been related to menopause because a lot of women who are menopausal were seen as manic and sent to asylums. So I think that's another layer to her story, which I find really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah, it's like I mean, the institutionalization of women is something that I am interested in as an impacted party, I guess, in that like not just as someone who has dealt with mental illness. It's it her being menopausal, like potentially menopausal, just add, yeah, it adds another layer to that because like historically, I think people just didn't know how to handle that. And so men were like, okay, well, we don't want to deal with you, you can go rot, essentially, like in this uh institution. Um and to know that it's or and to like assume that it's just you know this natural process that like women go through at a certain point in their lives, like it's just it's really upsetting. Um there was another and yeah, the fact that it's quilted, like I just did some hand quilting for the first time ever, and it was so time consuming, and I wasn't even like doing any writing, I was just making crosses, and it still took like hours of my time.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Um yeah, I mean I guess with Lorena's situation, she was in there for about 20 years, and it's like she didn't really have anything else to do in the workhouse or the asylum. But the other part of it is how long does it take to stitch a thought? Because to stitch one letter is gonna take about five minutes to stitch an entire sentence, it's gonna take hours and hours. So she must have been having to hold on to that thought for so long, and it's like how angry was she, and how much was she thinking about what she was putting into her quilts?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Probably a lot. Um in both counts. Like, I bringing it back to zines, I have a lot of zines. I have got this Persine series where I've been individually stamping each letter of all the words for the entire zine, and what you just said reminds me of that because it's like I have to hold on to these thoughts long enough to get them from my head to the stamp to the paper, like to the paper. And a lot of times I'll like kind of lose my train of thought halfway through, and I'll have to be like, oh crap, I have to go back and really think about what I wanted to say, even though I was so it was like they're very emotional zines, and so even though it's something that I've been thinking about and like ruminating on, it's still hard for me to like plan out what I'm going to say. So just knowing that she was sitting and and working on this for like 20 years while going through what she's detailing, because I'm you know, I'm also assuming that it wasn't a one-time thing, I'm assuming it was ongoing abuse.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah. Obviously, we I I spoke to the um the curator of her of her work, and she's not sure she was sexually abused, she's not sure that's what it means, but when it's when it's said in this way and there's no physical evidence, people can make up theories about it. So I read her work from a viewpoint that's what she meant, but other people will view it from a different viewpoint. But definitely, if this man married her sister, it's definitely possible that this was ongoing abuse, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

And the fact that he was like indicted for assaulting a child as well. Like that that's a huge red flag.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Um, one of the other pieces that I really liked from this zine was Elizabeth Parker. Um her how do you know how big that piece is, like physics like in space?

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Getting the page up on my I I think it's so it's currently at the VA in London. I've been meaning to go and see it, but I haven't yet. But I think it's probably about two sheets of A4 or two letter. I'm not sure what it is in American, sorry. Um so the writing is tiny. From what I can tell, I think the writing is cross-stitched. Okay, yeah, the writing's cross-stitched, um, which is I've tried to cross-stitch words before, and they always end up massive. So the way she's made them so small is so impressive.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

But that's definitely one of my favorites as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Yeah, that one I wasn't able to, you know, read every word of it because it's so small, but knowing that it knowing that it is so small and that's like two sheets of A4 is like really impressive. And she must have also been just holding on to these thoughts for so long. Because this one, I think, in the zine you say that it chronicles her life from birth.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's she you can't see it in the zine because I've got I've got a low printing budget, but it is in bright red thread as well. So when you see it, it's really impactful in a way because it's just like this white sort of linen backing or something with this bright red thread. But yeah, it chronicles her life from birth and then her her working as a maid to her subsequent subsequent sexual abuse until up to now where she's stitching, and she talks about how she was abused and it makes her wanted to it made her want to commit suicide and things like that. So it's really interesting, but I think what I also love about this piece is that from historical historical records we can see that she went through this, she was sexually abused, she wanted to commit suicide, but she actually went on to live until the age of 79, and she became a school teacher and she raised her sister's child. And I think there's just something about that story that's that's really beautiful in a way, because she she didn't let it control her life in a way.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah, it's very like kind of inspiring. Like, it obviously is really awful what she went through, but it also is like she overcame all of that and lived a really long life and was like was able to like kind of I don't know, go on to like better times, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah, yeah, especially living until the age of 79, which is pretty impressive in that time.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah, but yeah, it's honestly it's impressive now, um but like more impressive then. Um so yeah, the zine was it was really there's just so much research and care put into these zines, like all three of them um that you sent over. But oh, I also really liked Adelaide Hall's piece, the like lace.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Yes, I I'm a lace maker myself, so to see her piece or to find out about it was so interesting. Um so yeah, Adelaide Hall, she was in a mental institution again, like Lorena Bulwer, and she made lace showing the sexual abuse she went through from her father. But what I find really interesting is that she had therapists and doctors looking at her lace, going, hmm, this is really interesting. She's definitely made this up, and then they would publish their books about her, so they would profit off of her while also calling her basically exploiting her. I think they called her, yeah, they it was an incestuous fantasy of a crazed lady, and it's just yeah. So I think her work is beautiful, especially with how long it must have taken to make it, but then she was then exploited again. It just makes me so angry, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yeah, it beautiful work, but also really upsetting that she also like so she made it in like 1917, and then she stayed institutionalized until 1945 when she died at 82. So that's such a long long time to be suffering, um, and especially after trying to express herself like through this art and just being told like you're crazy and making this up.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

It's terrible, but yeah. And I'm sure there are a lot of other stories out there that are like this, and that's what I'm looking for, that's what I'm trying to find. All these women that were dismissed as being crazy or stuff like that. That's what I find important.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

And I thought that you have so many like reference. I I really like that you had like kind of an academic style like references page um and like further reading um in this first zine, as well as the other ones. Um but I was like, oh, okay, like it makes me want to cautiously read more, like cautiously do a deeper dive and like um really learn more. It such an in like I was saying earlier, it's such an interesting topic that I had never really like kind of put two and two together, been like, oh, there must be these stories out there, but like, especially as a textile artist, it makes me want to learn more.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

I would love to write more about it. It's just time and and funding in a way, because I can I can only really make a zine out of it at the moment and print it at home, but it's a topic that I do want to continue with.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

So you have a second a kind of like a follow-up to this one. It's issue 1.5. Do you want to talk about that scene?

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Uh yes, I can. That was I only have that as a PDF version. I don't have it at a hand right now, so it has to be off the top of my head. But I sort of wanted to I wanted to look into more some more stories and also maybe widen the term of what I meant by woman weaving stories of sexual assault. So one of the stories is actually a ripped dress from this 18th century that was used in a rape trial. And what I found really interesting was that this dress, this textile, was used as evidence of rape. Sadly, the rapist was found not guilty, but it told the story of how this is gonna be quite difficult in a way. If he wanted to rape her, he could have just lifted up her skirt, but it was the actual violence of destroying the dress and essentially destroying her and showing what he'd done to her through that. So I find That story is really interesting, even though it's not necessarily women using textiles to portray their story, it's still textiles told through no sexual assault through told through textiles. And another example was using in Bangladesh and India and Pakistan um cancer embroidery. So this was other women embroidering stories of somebody else's sexual assault, which I found really interesting. So for that edition, I just I wanted to widen the aspects of it, but I found it really interesting. It was really fun to do that.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yeah, I like that you kind of expanded on it. Um and yeah, it was another really powerful kind of compelling read and seeing pictures of some of these items. Like yeah, just really really powerful stuff. I had to like for these two zines, I had to like take them slow because I was like, this is such I don't want to like breeze through these and just be like, oh, look at the pretty pictures, like of these embroideries. Like it was I really wanted to like sit with these zines. Um yeah, they were both really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Thank you. And I guess part of my zine making process is it's quite a lot of imposter syndrome in a way, because a lot of other zines, they're sorry, I don't want to sound like I'm like putting them down, but I feel like these are quite academic in a way, and a lot of other zines that I own in my own zine library, they're quite they're fun and they're silly and they're very art focused and like handmade art focused. So when I made these, which was a lot of writing and like obviously my reference list, I was like, is this really a zine, or am I just who am I? Is this okay? Uh so that was quite hard, but yeah, I'm happy where I am now.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Good, yeah. They're really like really well researched. Um, I also want to talk about the second edition, um, which I am pulling up so I can have it on hand. This one was like it took a different turn. Um it it was certainly um certainly different than the first two. Um but it was really cool. It was like a like a journey.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah, this was this was a bit of the problem with with starting textile tales because I wanted it to be stories about historic textiles, but I guess I started in such a a deep way in the first issue that when I went on to the second issue, it was just like it was so completely different. But yeah, I'm hoping to go back a bit serious and a bit deeper in the third one, which I can talk about later.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yeah, um, would love to talk about kind of what you've got cooking for the third, but yeah, let's talk about the second issue, um, which is about a Syrian embroidered coat that you got off eBay?

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Yeah. Yeah, so kind of tell us about that process and working with your collaborator on that.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Um, so back on it was the end of December last year, I found this coat on eBay listed as a Palestinian coat. And I knew this lovely lady over in America, America called Ebdesam El Shaqwi, who collected Palestinian items because she is Palestinian, and she was like, if I send you the money, please buy this for me. I need this. So I did. It arrived at my house on New Year's Day, and it was incredible, but it had been haphazardly altered. It had been sewn up. Luckily, it hadn't been cut off, it'd been sewn up, and she gave me the task of sort of restoring it. That was such an exciting task, especially one to put on a 17-year-old, quite terrifying. But um, since then she was like, Wait, there are so many other textiles in the UK. If I send you the money, can you just buy them for me and then I'll I'll pick them up one day, you can send them over to me. So that's what happened. Um, the second issue, it was a bit of a we got scammed a little bit before we wrote it, so I think it was a bit of trying to lift our mood in a way, but um, yeah, we had bought a black thobe or dress, which so in Palestine, you dye your dress or your thobe black with mourning. We found one on Etsy, we bought it, and the seller was like, Oh, yes, it was dyed black for morning. Um it got here, and we found out that the seller had dyed it black herself. And this we had talked to the VA about it. The VA wanted to see it, they wanted us to bring it down, maybe put it on exhibition, stuff like that. So it was really heartbreaking. So we sort of we went, we looked towards this to have a bit of have joy in the life, but um I didn't know anything about Syrian textiles before this. I had bought it thinking it was Palestinian. I learned a lot about both textiles from this, and it was just a really fun read. And I actually got invited up to the Victorian Albert Museum in Dundee for this scene, so I love it very much. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Yeah, and like I'm sure as someone who kind of took up and was interested in Tetris, this must have been really exciting to work on as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

It was so exciting, I couldn't believe it. And especially because it's we think it's about the 19th century, late 19th century. So to have something that old in my hands, it was pretty incredible.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Yeah, what was the process of restoring it like so?

SPEAKER_00 28:15

I just had to unpick the stitches, which doesn't sound too hard, but it was through like all the silk and the embroidery, so I had to have these giant magnifying glasses on. I looked a bit like a bug. I was just trying to get the right stitches and not unpick the original. Um, it took me about two days. I got it done. She was restored to her former glory, and she's gorgeous now. She's tucked away in a box, and then yeah, I wrote the zine on her and Syrian embroidery because we were like, there's not really anything on Syrian embroidery out there, and I co-wrote it with the collector and curator that bought it because she's she's an expert in all this, she's amazing. I love her.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

I really liked the section on um like natural dyes on the East Mediterranean coast. Um, I love yeah, I love dyeing things, and natural dyeing is like something that I really want to have the time to get into because I I use like I don't know if you guys have writ dye over there, but I use a lot of writ dye and all like it's just clothing dye that's not natural. Um but natural dye is something that I I have this interest in, but haven't kind of had the chance to like really dive into. I've used walnut shells before um to like tie-dye, but it was really cool, just like all of the different colors that come from so many different things that grow on the East Mediterranean coast.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Yeah, same. I've tried natural dyeing with nestles before, it didn't really work. But the thing was with this coat, we couldn't tell if they were synthetic or natural, so I thought, well, they might be synthetic, they might be natural. Why not include natural dyes from that area? Which was it was really fun because a lot of these plants and insects don't exist in England and they probably don't exist in America, so it's really interesting to look at natural dyeing across the world because natural dyeing is such a diverse creation tradition, that's it. I just think it's so cool. So yeah, I I am quite proud of that page and the research that went into that.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Yeah, and there's some stuff that was really surprising to me. Um I think is specifically, I was just surprised by eucalyptus bark turning things pink and purple.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Um I know. I just wouldn't. I guess unless you don't see it, yeah. It's crazy. But yeah, that's that's the wonder of plants, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

I guess so, yeah. Yeah, this it makes we have, you know, we've got like pomegranates and walnut and indigo, and like we've got some of this stuff, and so it really made me want to like figure out where I can find this stuff and and just yeah, same.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

I have some future natural dyeing projects that I think I will refer back to this to my own zine as a reference, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Hell yeah. I also um I thought it was really interesting the like figure like splitting the dye into three eras. Um that was really interesting to me.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Yeah, so pre-World War One, Aniline, and the ones nowadays, yeah. It's you just you can't tell if a dye is natural or synthetic without sort of destroying it in a way. Obviously, if you're if you're in a museum, if you've got those resources, it'll be really easy to do. But as I'm just within my home, I can't test the dies really at all. So I did have to make this from a perspective of when was it made, how was it made. I don't know. Here's some theories.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Which you know, sometimes that's all you can do is just theorize and and hope. Um, but it still makes for a really interesting zine.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Thank you. Yeah, I think the thing with my zines is that I don't want to go, this is information and this is final information. There are no other theories, this is exactly what it means because that's not right at all. Both of these zines, they're they're always open to new information. Like if people read my zines, they're like, oh, actually, they can just email me, and I'd be so happy for that because learning every day and making mistakes is what information and learning is about. So I want people to know that.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

There's also a line that I really liked in this one. Um, and it was what are borders if not lines drawn on a map? Embroidery is not confined to imaginary lines, it spills and travels through mothers, daughters, sons, and fathers. Um, I thought that was really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Thank you. That I was quite proud of that one. I was good.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

So, what is in store for issue three?

SPEAKER_00 33:16

So, issue three is it's a long time coming. It's been planned for a long time. It's a bit of a collaborative issue, but issue three is called dress codes, and it is about how we can use textiles and fashion to signal things and things like that. So I have a lovely lady over in Ireland who is writing a little piece on disability in fashion. Uh I have somebody down in Bournemouth writing something about corsets and their signals in fashion. I don't know what that's going to be like, I haven't read it yet, but I'm very excited for that. But I'm looking at things like colours. So Elizabeth I, she wore white. What does it mean for her to only wear white? Um, looking at the civil rights movement with the denim marches, um, handkerchief code, really anything. It's I'm in a bit of a creative block right now, so it's about half written, but I'm really excited for it to come out because it's something I'm so interested in again. But it will be quite different to the the past two again, which is cool that like each issue is maybe not necessarily evolving, but just changing around the same general thread, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Yeah. Um I was like, what's a different word than thread? No, thread is perfect because it's textiles. Um yeah, but like just they're they're different, but they've got the same underlying current.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Exactly, yeah. And I think if I just wrote zines on the same subject and didn't go anywhere, I think I get a bit bored. But the thing is, textiles are such a broad subject, I can go anywhere, and that's what I love about it.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yeah, I'm excited to to read that one when it's done.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Um I have some kind of general questions about kind of zines in the UK. If you have um any info on that, I'm just wondering like, what's the zine scene like where you are, I guess?

SPEAKER_00 35:29

So I am in Essex. Essex is a very conservative county. Um there's not a lot for zines here. I'm stocked in one shop in Essex, and it's like the only radical bookshop I know in Essex. It's it's so nice, it's lovely. There aren't there, isn't really a big zine scene here. If you go up to Norwich, massive zine scene because it is an arts university place. I think they do lots of workshops and things like that. Probably a lot of bookstores have them in. But anywhere in the major cities will have zine-related things. There are there's quite a few markets, fairs, and exhibitions of them, which is really exciting. But when you're in sort of rural England, there's not a lot, but there is uh I think it's in America too, you know, the zine map, if that's what it's called. Yeah, yeah, that we have that here as well, which is really useful, and I love that. But I think most of the zine stuff is actually up in Scotland. You've got Edinburgh and Glasgow zine presses and stuff, but there's quite a lot in England, actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

How are you able to connect with other zine sters? Um, kind of living specifically where there's not, you know, in your county, there's not really a zine scene, but like how are you able to to connect with um other zine sters?

SPEAKER_00 36:55

I actually don't know that many zine sters around me, but I is I usually do it through Instagram, so I post about them and then I just I follow a lot of other zines to people and then they follow me back. But I also have my own little I call it a printing press, it's just a printer, but I print other people's zines for them and help to distribute them. So I know a lot of people through that, which is awesome, and I just I love building a little zine community, you know.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Yeah, and I mean I found your zines on r slash zines, like which is um surprisingly a not terrible corner of Reddit, I will say.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Um, for how awful that website can be. I have found really cool pockets of it, I'll say.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Definitely. I need to start using things like zines on Reddit more, not Reddit as a whole, just that part of Reddit and like TikTok and just any sort of social media because I mainly use Instagram, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Um, is there any other zine stuff that you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Ooh, I'm not sure. I don't I don't I not off the top of my head, I can't think of any. Do you have any zine questions? I guess, even though you've just asked most of them.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

Yeah. Um how do you find or I guess you may have kind of already touched on this, but like, how are you finding contributors for your third issue? Is it through Instagram primarily?

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Um, it is through Instagram. I made an Instagram post. I got two contributors. I was hoping for a little more, which is why it's taken me so long to write, because I was like, oh, this will be a collaborative issue, less for me to write. No. Um yeah, it is mainly through Instagram. I I would like to go, I would like to have an issue with a lot of contributors, but I also know that I can't pay them, and not paying people for their work is not appealing to them, which is so understandable. But so many people have so much information to share, you know, different perspectives of textiles that I would like to compile them and make them accessible, but there is that issue of funding and payment.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

I mean, uh so personally, as someone who's put together a lot of compilation zines and submission-based stuff, I feel like people do want to get paid for their work, but also like a lot of zine sters are super stoked if you just like send them a copy of the finished zine, is what I'm saying. Yeah, because I'm like, I can't pay you, but like I'll give you copies of the zine, and everyone like almost everyone has been like, okay, yeah, that's cool. Like, yeah, yeah, they're really stoked.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

I think I just need to find the right audience, the textile audience.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Yeah, I mean, I feel like textiles, it might be might be like actually, I don't know. My guess is that like I'm I'm hoping that it'll be as chill as like because I put together a lot of compilation scenes on like karaoke and like a very specific cartoon King of the Hill, and so it's like it's people who are really excited about those topics. I feel like textiles because textile artists know how much effort goes into a textile piece, but I'm hoping for your sake that they're just as as chill and are like, yeah, I'll just take a copy. Like sometimes I'll offer two copies.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, here's one for you, and here's one for your friend. Please contribute to me.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

Yeah, well, I mean, in a bit I'll ask you like where people can find your your call for submissions, and hopefully that'll help. Um, but yeah, I comp comp scenes are tricky, but I feel like for the most part, zine sters, the zine community just kind of at large is like some of the most pleasant people I've interacted with ever, and everyone just wants to like help each other out, which I think is really special.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Definitely, and I also think I think zines as mutual aid, if that makes any sense, is is really lovely because I know mine are academic and for my own sort of payment in that sense, but I've seen a lot of zines and I printed a lot of zines that are for helping people, and I I think that's lovely. I think it's such a amazing way to offer support, and that's just a random thing about zines I love.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Yeah, no, absolutely, like just being able to I love printing for other people for that reason. I have a photocopier in my garage, and like I love printing for other people because it is helping other people get information out. So it is and a lot of the information that they're getting out is how to help other people in other ways, and so that it's just this kind of continuous cycle of like, yeah, I can help you out, you can help someone else out, that'll help. Like, it's just kind of never-ending. I love zines, I love the zine community. I talk like almost every episode of this, I'm just like, oh, the zine community is such a special group of people large group of people. Um, just because everyone brings such different and important energy to the medium, I think.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Definitely, it's just so diverse and varied, and that's what makes it awesome. You like you won't find the same two zines in a bookshop. That's what's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Yeah, everyone makes something a little different, and then it all kind of comes together under this like big weird umbrella. Yeah, weird in a good way, weird in a very good way. Yeah, it like you're saying, it's very diverse and varied. Um, where can people find your work and your calls for submissions online?

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Um, so I mainly post them on my Instagram, which is The Strawberry Thief. Um, I'll actually I'll post another call for submissions because that last one was in April. So I hadn't actually thought about reposting it, but that's a that's a good idea, thank you. But yeah, I'm I'm mainly on there and I've got other links in my bio on there, so that's it.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Okay, yeah, I'll post a link to your Instagram in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Um, yeah, that's all the questions I have. Um, this has been really just fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Thank you for having me. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

Yeah, yeah, thanks for being on the show. Um, I also wanted to thank all of my monthly Kofi podcast supporters. Um, it really helps subsidize the cost of hosting and production and makes the podcast possible. Um, so thank you so much, everyone, for supporting. Um, if you have found a zine maker that you are really vibing with, um, or if you found someone new from the show, um consider supporting me for a dollar a month um or more. But yeah, it starts at a dollar. Um after fees, it's like 60 cents. Um and if you want to be on Long Arm Stapler, or if you know someone who wants to be on Long Arm Stapler who I should talk to about zines, um, there's a link in the show notes or in my link tree to fill out a Google form and I will get back to you. Um yeah, again, Iris, thank you. And I hope everyone is enjoying season nine and stay tuned for more.