In addition to standard writing / art pieces, we are also asking for people to recommend books, literature, other zines, classes, professors, spaces, films, documentaries, and other sorts of media that have helped them grow (academically, socially, "queer"ly). We want QUAC to be a learning space that educates the community as well as entertains! We are also looking to include advertisements for (queer / radical) events, groups, and spaces! If you have any news that you would like to report on (an event, policy, national / communal level), please send those to us as well, we find this documentation of queer history extremely valuable and have yet to receive submissions of this kind!
This next issue is focusing on contextualized queerness, in particular queerness in a particular geographical region or location. How has location signaled or interpellated your queerness? How has your location altered, strengthened, destroyed, and/or developed your queer identity? How has the media contextualized your queerness and essentialized it within the context of a particular location? What aspects about your queerness resonate with your surroundings? What aspects are in conflict? How has your understanding of normativity (around you directly and indirectly) changed as a result of your queer identity? How has it normalized your identity?
These are just some questions to get your mind going if you are having trouble thinking of something to submit! Also keep in mind, queer perspectives and critiques on current events are crucial to this project’s mission statement of documenting queer histories and experiences. What is a queer reading of the “gay suicides?” What is at stake with the rulings on DADT and Prop 8? What about “queer tourism” during this holiday season and the way queer bodies are read at touristy hot spots? Does your queerness change the ways you engage your family for the holidays? How about a queer reading of the current tuition increases and the chalking events that have become an issue regarding free speech? To what effect is queer silencing an issue at UCI? Or is it an issue?
What kinds of alternative sexual (queer) spaces do you know of in Orange County? How have these counterpublics served queer culture and the cultivation of queer identities? What is at stake with the gentrification of many of these locations (if there are any left in the OC)?
How have you experienced queerness as an ally? How does queerness get mapped on to your body, and what kinds of negotiations are involved (internally and externally)? How queer can you be as an ally? What does queer mean to an ally?
You could probably write novels on the topics above but if you still need help, don’t be shy to ask! If you need some clarification on QUAC, see the previous issue on the group page or give me a call / message! Again, this is a collective project and as such, it is only as valuable as the energy we all put in to it.
Remember that if you are submitting art, keep in mind that QUAC is printed in black and white.
QueerZineUCI@gmail.com
More information here.
This blog is no longer updated. Please instead visit Writers For Diversity for new opportunities for women/ LGBT writers and writers of color. Thank you.
