For various reasons, STML has been reading around the old zine scene for a few days, and interesting connections have been unearthed.

My first contact with zines was the oversize compendium Zines! Vol. 1 published by RE/Search, possibly the greatest independent publisher of weird shit of all time, which chronicled the emergence of the zine, self-publishing and small press scene through interviews with such legends as Lyn Peril of Mystery Date, and Noel Tolentino from Bunnyhop. As the cover said: “Surrender to the incredibly strange urge… to create your own Zine!” – and I did. Several times.

Being far away from such centres of hipness as Dover, Tennessee and Detroit, Illinois, my greatest influence were the homegrown queerzines and minicomics of the mid-90s: Rachael House’s Red Hanky Panky, Sina’s Atomic Boy and especially Jeremy Dennis’ 3 in a bed. These were roughly photocopied booklets I used to get from the wonderful 30th Century Comics in Putney SW15, and I still feel that, compared to independent bookstores, comic shops are not given their fair dues as disseminators of the radical, the rare and the dirty. The first time I took a queerzine to the counter was up there with buying Gay Times in W.H.Smiths, or condoms in Boots (Now on 3 for 2!), but I soon learnt that comic shops, like indy bookstores, were havens for sallow-faced misfits. And me, of course.

I was very pleased to stumble upon Jeremy Dennis and Damian Cugley’s current website, the excellent Alleged Literature. Among various other minicomic projects, Jeremy is busy doing bad things to the bible in The N Testament, a page of which is reproduced above, continuing the theme of book abuse from the last post.

The advent of the interweb pretty much killed off the zine movement, as discussed, coincidentally enough, on Sunday, when a large number of people, including Iain Sinclair, Tim Wells of Rising and 3AM Magazine‘s Richard Marshall, turned up to watch STML listen to them discuss Self-Publishing and DIY Culture, the final event of this year’s Clerkenwell Literary Festival. The CLF’s own blogger captures the salient points here, and if you look carefully, you might catch STML in the audience. If you didn’t make it to the Fest this year, keep your eyes open and your ears peeled for next year. It’s worth it, not least because almost all the events take place in pubs.

So the story of the moment seems to be that old chestnut, the fact that men only read men. This has bothered me for a while – because it rings pretty true. I can count the books by women I’ve read on my own time – i.e. when I didn’t have to – on a very small hand. Sorry.

This is all news of course because of the forthcoming Orange Prize. I am ashamed to say that I haven’t read any of the books on the list. This is particularly poor as there are two from my favourite publisher, Serpent’s Tail: Billie Morgan by Jules Denby and We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, and I hope one of them wins. I’ve heard excellent things about A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian too.

Now, Lisa Jardine and Anne Watkins of QMC have produced a survey that pretty much nails it: if 100 male critics and writers, those with a vested interest in reading around, can’t be bothered reading women, then what average joe will?

I know I don’t. Why? Well, the recent surge in women’s writing (Zadie Smith, Andrea Levy &c.), as well as those on this years Orange list, has largely passed me by, because I don’t read anything that hasn’t made it’s way down to the All Books £1 shelf. Even if I was to read exclusively the new releases, I think that books by women are, all too often, conciously marketed at women – and I don’t just mean the pastel cover, kiddie font, flowers, legs and high heels chicklits either. Kamila Shamsie is a fantastic writer, but look at the cover of new book, Broken Verses – pretty roses! Swirly writing! Am I shallow?

Yes – added to by the fact I only read women if they’re foreign. I am a sexist xenophile snob. Sorry.

It also reminds me of the big row that broke a while back over New Writing 13, when Tony Litt and Ali Smith got into a lot of hot water for saying in their introduction:

“On the whole the submissions from women were disappointingly domestic, the opposite of risk-taking – as if too many women writers have been injected with a special drug that keeps them dulled, good, saying the right thing, aping the right shape, and melancholy at doing it, depressed as hell.”

Most of the criticism seemed to be focussed on the fact that these two Bloody Men equated the domestic with the dull – a clear attack on a woman’s right to be a woman in a woman’s context. Or something. I didn’t think the comment in any way attacked the possibilities of the domestic, simply the way in which such potential was not being fully exploited. But what do I know. I’m a Bloody Man too.

Actually, I’ve just remembered what the last book I read by a woman was…