After Grrrl Zine: small stories from big lives A collective zine edited by Carrie Jo Tucker
There are a lot of things I love in life, but I particularly love zines, badass feminists and small stories from big lives!
It’s no surprise that my reaction when I got a copy of After Grrrl zine was pure excitement.
A collective zine, edited by Carrie Jo Tucker, for the ‘Freaks, geeks, weirdos and outcasts’ features pieces told by musicians, artists, writers, business owners and bakers about their lives, from friendships to family, education to health, indecisions to decisions, self-harm to self –belief, spirituality to creativity, cool mums to bad boyfriends, love to hate and everything in between!
I love to read zines and especially stories that people share, I often think it’s as empowering to read someone else’s truth as it is to write your own.
Each piece tells of a moment in their lives that made them stop, think differently, make a change, or take a breath and just breathe and say it’s ok, I’M OK!
I guess it’s a perzine of sorts (a perzine being a personal zine, where the subject matter is personal to the writer!) It just happens to be full of personal stories from lots of women who are successful in their chosen field, and features of lot of my absolute favourites!
From my teenage musical heroes like Allison Wolfe, Helen Storer, Lori Barbero and Jessicka Addams, to all the people and artists I admired in my 20s such as Tara McPherson, Kelly Osbourne, Elizabeth McGrath and Camille Rose Garcia and people whose work I continue to discover in my 30s: Lori Nelson and members of the band Kitten Forever.
And just as it features inspirational people I have admired from my teenage years to now the stories they tell are ones I have or will face throughout my life. Being young and told girls can’t do this girls can’t do that, being older and regretting not finishing my education, being older still and realising it isn’t too late to learn to play the drums. It’s all in there!
It’s all in there and reading it from other people makes me feel less alone and more like I have got this!
At the very end of the zine there is a blank page for YOU to write YOUR own story, and I think that is the best part of all. There is also an After Grrrl presence online to share your story.
Tell your story, share it, speak your truth, let things go, take things in, build a community and most of all believe in yourself!
Get a copy here
Tell your story here
