Canzine 2015

The occult panel at Canzine was super fun

Broken Pencil‘s Canzine 2015 took place yesterday, at the Art Gallery of Ontario from 1-7 pm.

The panel I participated on, “Magick and the Occult in the Independent Arts,” was a lot of fun, and by the time we started the room was packed, with people standing at the back and sitting on the floor, which was super amazing.

My talk focused on the history and development of occult periodicals, both journals and zines, and noted their similarities, and the effect the Internet had on connecting disparate communities. I also briefly about Spiral Nature, and its role in that scene.

I printed a one page ‘zine that took a 2008 post from a defunct blog in response to another defunct blog, that’s now archived on Spiral Nature titled “Occult ‘zines as cultural artificats” that went a little further, as I knew I wouldn’t have time to get into everything I wanted to talk about during our session.

It’s the #canzineto panel on Witchcraft and occult practices in the indie arts! On til 2:50 pm at @agotoronto

A photo posted by Broken Pencil Magazine (@brokenpencilmag) on

There were some wonderfully moving talks from Clementine Morgan and Amrit Brar. Jenna Danchuk dove into the impact feminist witchcraft zines had and continue to have, as well as talked a bit about what it’s like to curate and edit zines and small magazines like Worn and Spiral Nature. Lynx Sainte-Marie’s talk opened up important discussions about race, sexuality, gender, intersectionality and identity in these spaces, and challenged us to do more, not only as creators, but as consumers.

We were so impassioned about our topics that we kind of ran over time, and the moderator, Jonathan Valelly, only had time to pose one question. Though we did get some time to chat with people outside after the panel.

If anyone didn’t get a chance to catch up with me at the occult panel at Canzine and wanted to talk about ‘zines and occulture or anything else, feel free to contact me and we can chat.

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