I’m back begging the tumblr girlies of radblr to send me any art or writing that you would like to see published in the 7th edition of Backbone. I’m 22 pages in as of writing this, and would like to make it up to 40 pages of content at least. As usual, there is no topic you need to conform to. Anything created by a radical or rad leaning woman is accepted (within reason). We do essays, poetry, women’s history, short fiction, ink drawings, collage, fiber art, you name it. One thing to keep in mind is that for now I am planning to continue to print in black and white, although I am in the market for a professional printer to turn the zine into a magazine, so that plan might change. We do still accept colored art work, it’s just something to be aware of. Please message me here for my contact info, and thank you guys so much! Radblr really came through for me on the last edition, and I’m hoping this will work again. Hopefully this will be an early spring edition, but regardless of when you see this, please reach out if you have content. I am always accepting pieces throughout the year, and anything that doesn’t make the very loose deadline will be used in a future edition. Everyone who contributes will get a copy of the zine, and I am working on turning them all into PDFs so that contributors can print and distribute as many as they want.
So backbone/tails noir/Eggnut as a whole got shut down. I don’t really know how to emphasize why this was a huge deal to me as well as many other people, because frankly I feel like I’m not a good person to speak on this.
I found Tails/Backbone/whatever at a really weird period of my life, like post-losing my friend in the world because she wasn’t ok with me having time alone with my bf and pre-moving on. And that made things a little easier, I played the two games in a weird order and it made things less scary for me, it made me feel like I could be strong even in the face of really difficult shit and it made me realize that I love life despite how painful it is. Backbone was a game that made me feel I wasn’t small or pathetic, just me.
But even more than that, Backbone was a game that helped me find people who would share my interests and hear me and not judge me for feeling certain ways or doing certain things. It was a clean slate to speak honestly as myself instead of what people expected me to be, and with that I started creating in a way I haven’t ever. I finished projects, I had things to show for me. I fell in love with this community and to see everyone hurt and grow and change and become new people is to remind me what got me here.
Can’t say it was Backbone but I can’t say it didn’t help.
I’m sad, but also not sad enough to call this mourning. I think of it as an opportunity just how the loss of a childhood best friend lead me to creating so much more and being okay with myself. A door closed, and another opens. That’s what I think.