Nearly ten months after the idea was floated at Mxogyny, our first Zine has come to fruition. Growing Pains is a collection of think pieces, poetry, prose and art that encompasses the theme of change and growth in the face of adversity.

We are very proud to finally present to our readership with this milestone for Mxogyny as a print publication. To celebrate it’s launch, we have collected a few words from our contributors on what inspired their work in Growing Pains and why they think zines are an important product in today’s cultural climate.

Tabby Carless-Frost, illustrator of the cover art ‘Growing Pains’

I designed the cover of the Zine - 'Growing Pains' - which explored the discomfort of transition: the painful process of metamorphosis from one thing to another, from old self to new self, from contraction to expansion. I wanted to create something simple, but also something that would resonate with the confused, melancholic side of self growth but also express the ever widening set of possibilities it brings, as conveyed in the lively outward spiral of the blue background.

As a long running writer and illustrator for Myxogyny's online platform, I was super excited to get involved in the first physical manifestation of their radical project. Pamphlets and zines have historically been a politically charged tool for disseminating new and exciting ideas. It is a form that is often more affordable and less elitist than books, allowing for a more diverse and underrepresented chorus of voices to be heard. Zines can be picked up, popped in a pocket, or passed to a friend - they travel as much as the ideas inside them do.

Eilidh Northridge, author of ‘Suitcase’

I wrote suitcase just as I was about to finish university, when everything was about to gallop off into the complete unknown. I wanted to address the shame and alienation we can experience when we’re on the point of growth and change. Since then, ‘the unknown’ has become somewhat of a omnipresent phenomena for everyone in the world, and it has radically altered the way we think and live. Communicating our experiences of the unknown, both collective and individual, is vital in affecting how we respond to it. During this pandemic, its been easy to feel frighteningly alone and powerless, as we grope blindly for how we can ‘come out of this pandemic’ as better people. I hope Zines can become one of the wonderful ways artists and thinkers are speaking to that feeling.

Hannah Petch, author of ‘Learning How To Blossom’

I think Zines are a really exciting platform to showcase your work. As a young/marginalised creative it can be really difficult to get your work out there, zines offer an opportunity for people to share their work with an audience when bigger platforms may not offer that opportunity - everyone has to start somewhere and zines are great way of showcasing a huge variety of art/creativity!

Bindu Dev, author of ‘A Night At Waterloo Bridge’

The ability to share opinions/feelings without the need to censor or conform to the standards of a society built on crumbly foundations is essential in the expression of honest, brutal and life changing creativity! A great big thanks to Mxogyny, for creating a platform built on the freedom required for truth to be told.

Georgia Bartlett-McNeil, author of ‘Lepidoptera’

"Lepidoptera" came into being because of a prompt that I saw, I think it was to do with "words that have no meaning" or something along that kind of line - and I took it from the perspective of all those emotions and words we wish we could express but sometimes have no words for; how they evolve from ideas and concepts and grow to eventual physical results, whether that's a poem or a piece of art or music, or even a scientific paper (I've been guilty of that one as I studied Human Biology at university and am a scientist during the daytime!). Much like caterpillars growing to butterflies, I definitely think this idea matched the theme of "Growing Pains" that the Zine is covering in more ways than one!

I think zines are an important creative product in today's sector because (pre-COVID!) they allowed for more rapid production and exposure, and therefore development of platforms and followings, both of which are critical to any arts scene. It's been interesting to see how different people and groups have approached the difficulties of maintaining those followings during the current times - it has shown the true versatility of our creative communities - and whilst I have enjoyed a show or two over Zoom or Facebook and being involved in slightly different ways, I hope that we'll be back to live gigs and shows very soon!

Charlie Ball, author and photographer of ‘Into A New City’

I choose to create the piece of work for the growing pains submission as it almost was perfectly in tune with how I was struggling to adjust to my new life in Manchester. Growing pains are a part of big moments in life so this series of photographs was my way of dealing and moving with that.

Zines have the ability to allow any emerging creatives to start their own physical space for their own work as well as any collaborators. Zines give creatives complete freedom in what they choose to draw, paint, shoot, write about, these spaces also provide an audience and an income for the artists who would as part of a company or completely on their own would struggle. Every level of a Zine is creative, in producing the content for it, designing how it will look, printing off the finished product, which will then be picked up and read by another person who could be creatively inspired by any of those aspects.

Growing Pains is now available to order here. All proceeds will go towards the upcoming Mxogyny Project Fund which will provide grants to marginalised creatives in support of their artistic practices. More information to follow early 2021.