Back from Leeds

After a week in a grotty festival field with no running water and a disappointing lack of cold beer, it turns out it’s now September and the deadline for getting the first issue of Nowt Zine out into the world is very soon.  I’m amazed at the number of complete strangers who have contacted us to contribute stuff so far, from poetry to interviews to awesome bags made of old ties. Considering we have nothing to offer them except a poorly-photocopied version of their work in what might yet turn out to be an awful excuse for a fanzine, I am eternally grateful.

We’ve got some lovely festival pictures for the “centrefold” page, unfortunately no naked pics yet but there’s still time. If you would like to send in your festival pictures, nudity or other topics both fine, please e-mail nowtzine@gmail.com.

To sum up, we’re getting there slowly, and my first dole cheque is due tomorrow so we’ll soon have money for photocopying. Deadline for contributions is roughly the 13th September, so if you’re sitting on some amazing content for us then you need to get a wiggle on.

PS Please go and see Marmaduke Duke before you die. They totally vindicated my rash choice to miss Kings of Leon on the Sunday night.

Potential contributors:

If you have some sort of link to Cumbria / The Borders, whether you live here, study here, came here once for a holiday but all you can remember is the Keswick Pencil Museum and a vague sense of dampness, then you are welcome to contribute to Nowt Zine.

Best if you enjoy writing, reviewing, drawing or photography, and your outputtings are somewhat related to the local area, but really we’re an easy-going bunch and welcome contributions of any sort.

E-mail nowtzine@gmail.com if you are at all interested. If you can produce something better than my pigeon photoshop jobby then you’re definitely in with a shout.

So there we were in Wetherspoons…

…mixing Corona and own brand brownies, peeling zine samples off the sticky tables in order to “borrow” ideas, when I brought up the name for this zine. My old man had already laughed at “the M6 and the deep blue sea” as a title, but even before then it was clear the name was too clunky. It’s not like we’re ever going to charge people money to read this, but who ever saw a name like that on a newsstand?

So now it’s Nowt. For anyone not from Cumbria or the surrounding North, “nowt” means “nothing”. As in: there’s nowt between the M6 and the deep blue sea (in this case, the Irish Sea). It’s for anyone making noise in Cumbria at the moment, whether through music, art, photography, whatever. Photocopying costs to be covered by my first dole cheque. Hopefully you’ll see a real life paper copy of the zine somewhere in the county towards the end of September. Til then, why not follow our comings and goings on this blog, and see how we get on pretending like we know what we’re doing?

And if anyone dislikes the name, it’s all Rachel’s fault.