03. Meanwhile book launch party

Burning Eye Books IG Live ft. Laiza Onofre and Lauren Ding

Last Thursday we had a lovely book release for Meanwhile. I took over Burning Eye Books’ IG Live and read some pieces from the book. My wonderful friends Laiza Onofre and Lauren Ding read work of their own. Laiza is a feminist illustrator, musician and writer who has recently done a lot of poignant artwork against femicides in Mexico. She’s just released the second edition of her Club de Amigos con Papás Divorciados(Club for Friends with Divorced Parents), initially a zine and now published by Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, and y’all should buy it too. It’s in Spanish but you can always learn for a change. :)

Laiza and I have been friends since 2003 or so. She wrote this about us:

Joya de manzana
Always there, always present.
Since the ancient times of fotolog.
We shared the most endearing thing… growing together.
We have seen each other happy. Happy to inebriation.
We have seen each other sad. Sad to the marrow.
We have seen each other laugh as never, cry as ever.
I never forget that time you read my thoughts,
seeing my ex boyfriend cross by the Diego de Montemayor road
- may the dude crossing the road go fuck his mum-
We laughed in such complicity, we found ourselves in such complicity.

Eternal joya de manzana, from your Santa Belleza to your warm and deep hugs…
Always, my total love and admiration.

Joya is our city’s fizzy fruit drink, and my favourite flavour is apple (manzana). One of my early screennames was Joya de Manzana, in its honour. My blog under that name is still online, ahahaha.

Santa Belleza was my first zine. A short story in Spanish I wrote, illustrated, published, photocopied and sold myself, ca. 2009-10.

A lot of local jokes and moments. So endearing. I wouldn’t tell the guy to go fuck his mum now tho. I’d tell him to go fuck himself.

Graphic design is my passion.

Lauren was a key person in my fat acceptance-activism-liberation journey. A pioneering fatshionista who was organising plus events and bringing riot grrrl ethics into diet-free aesthetics at a time when a lot of today’s “bodiposi” influencers were still counting points. Everyone’s journey are different, but respect the original, y’all. I don’t have her text to share, but she’s amazing. Here’s a picture of her with the iconic Velvet D’Amour.

Legends.

Anyway, here’s the full set for y’all to look at. I spent the first ten minutes taking up space as praxis aka putting on my nails because I was running out of time.

Get the book here on the Burning Eye Books website. And once you’ve read it, review on Goodreads.

If you got this newsletter by accident and you like it, subscribe for more. In the coming releases, I will talk more about the bloody book - artwork, themes, etc.