Read any good (print) ones lately?
PensNest
and please, excuse me for leaping into a forum I don't usually frequent.
I'm hoping there will be a few people out there in the wide world of fanfic
who can help me. My name's Pen Robinson, and for a few years now I have
produced a zine readers' newsletter called 'An Idiosyncratic Review'. I
started it up because I love reading good fan fiction, particularly in zine
form, and wanted to get some idea of (a) what's available to buy, and (b)
what's *good*. AIR has always been intended as a reviewzine, and has
always had a decent collection of zine reviews, as well as articles on
various aspects of fanfic, LoCs, and of course, zine ads.
I realise that not all of the people who read/write fanfic online are zine
readers; nonetheless, I expect there are some out there who still enjoy
seeing their fanfic in print form. For those among you, I have a request.
A plea, even!
AIR is coming to an end. After seven very healthy issues, I'm now finding
it incredibly hard to get hold of reviews, and a reviewzine with no reviews
is a waste of everyone's time and money. So enough's enough. But I would
dearly love to make the final issue really special - triple-sized, or
thereabouts. For this, I need more reviews.
So - have you read any zines lately? Would you be willing to write a
review of said zine for the final issue of AIR? You will, of course,
receive a copy of it in thanks.
My guidelines are fairly generous, I think. Reviews should be of
publications which are currently available - they don't have to be hot off
the press, just purchasable. There are no word limits (though I may ask
you to trim if I feel you're rambling - yes, I do my best to edit
contributions, though most contributors are probably better writers than I
am an editor). Reviews must be signed with your real name; I don't accept
reviews written by the editor, publisher or sole author of a zine, but if
you have a contribution of up to 15% of page count, you can review as long
as you make your own 'interest' clear. Incidentally, although the header
for this post is 'any good ones', don't let that deter you if you have read
something that's very poor value for money, or even simply 'average'. We
zine readers all know that not all zines are five-star bargains. Wit,
humour and personal style are fine - more than fine, in fact; I just ask
that nobody sharpens hir wit on the target without remembering that there
is a human being behind that zine.
If you'd like further guidelines, and/or to see samples of previously
published reviews before you have a go, please contact me. I'll be more
than happy to send you what I can, and to give what help I can if you are
not sure how to go about reviewing.
In addition, recommendations for fanfic websites would be welcome - a brief
(one or two sentences) review of each website you recommend would be
perfect.
Please pass this message along to anyone whom you think would be
interested.
Thanks for your time,
Pen
AIRHead
<To email me, remove the obvious.>