lip magazine: for girls who think feel create speak out live

On Saturday lip had a stall at the Canberra Readers and Writers Festival. I didn’t get to see much in the way of panels or workshops, but had a pretty good day nonetheless. Thanks to everyone who bought magazines and buttons - bringing us much closer to our print budget goal for issue 14. And a special thanks to Jodie, who travelled all the way from Hay to do work experience with us over the weekend.

from left: Melissa, Zoya (lip columnist) and Jodie (work experience)

This weekend sees our editor, Rachel, head to Newcastle for TINA - lucky girl. The program is jam-packed full of great events and panels. If you’re going, make sure to find the lip table at the zine fair and say hi.

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The theme is Icy Worlds: Cool Words and features over 40 International and Australian Authors.

It will be held alongside the Lifeline BookFair at Exhibition Park in Canberra from 21-23 September.

Highlights include appearances by the 2007 NSW Premier’s Award winning authors Ursula Dubosarsky and Gideon Haigh as well as Canadian mystery writers Louise Penny and David Gibbins.

Opening night will feature a keynote address by ABC foreign correspondent Leigh Sales and performance poetry by Canadian Baba Brinkman.

There will be a Schools Day, panel sessions, literary lunches, workshops, book signings, book launches, exhibitions, great conversations, great wine and coffee and award announcements.

And we will have a table where you can buy magazines, talk to us about the challenges of publishing an independent magazine in Canberra, and find out about contributing to future issues.

Hope to see you there. (Festival program at http://actwriters.org.au/Festivals/festivals.htm)

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I just finished a phone interview with a film director for an article I’m writing for next issue (don’t ask who, or which film, you’ll just have to wait for the mag to come out).

Phone interviews are stressful: you don’t know when the batteries in your tape recorder are going to go flat, or if it’s actually recording anything at all, despite having conducted numerous tests that are sure to drain the last life from said batteries. You want to show enthusiasm and praise for the person you’re interviewing and the work they have done, without sounding like a groupie (you’re a professional, dammit!). And you want to sound conversational and spontaneous, while still asking all the carefully scripted questions you listed half an hour before the call.

So, the interview went well and I got a clear recording and lots of good quotes. But I’ve interviewed some real shockers in the past. The one-word responders. The ramblers. The interviewee with their own agenda…

It’s a good thing we have Google.

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Considering our recent discussions about lad’s mags, I found this article in The Guardian particularly interesting.

“…It is no wonder a lot of men now genuinely believe that women want to be treated as sex objects. Who could blame them when so many of us have internalised an exhibitionistic ideal of our own objectification?”

- No wonder men treat us as sex objects if we act like this, by Decca Aitkenhead, Thursday September 13, 2007.

Why do some young women want to send in tacky photographs of themselves to a magazine for men to judge, gawk at and wank over? Is there a different reasoning behind a woman who chooses to be a model, stripper or porn star as her career?

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I commented recently about the issue of consent around the submission and publication of photos of women’s cleavage in Zoo’s competition. It appears lad mags like Zoo and FHM have little regard for this concept, but maybe this will change after courts yesterday found FHM guilty of publishing a photo of a topless 14-year-old without her consent.

Read more here: http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,,2166997,00.html

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Natasha Hughes at SMH asks: Is it really worth buying the glossies… or are they a bit of a disappointment once you get them home?

http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beautybeat/archives/2007/09/bag_the_mag.html?s_rid=smh:top5

From the comments, it seems many readers agree:

“I stopped reading fashion and beauty magazines when i was 20 years old and my self esteem rose significantly.”

“I work across the road from Dolly and Cleo and the self-satisfied smirks of staffers as they sashay into their office to spend another day writing about 13 yo’s getting brazilians and how to give good head…well…I wouldn’t want to know Im supporting their habits!!”

“the so called “fashion” magazines are almost 90% advertising and because of that they shoul be free. the gossip mags are so full of crap that is almost embarrassing to read the , not to mention, to be seen reading then!”

She then asks: What do you get out of the monthly glossies? Are there any you couldn’t live without or some foreign publications we should know about? Are they inspirational or just aspirational?

I have boxes and boxes of magazines I can’t bear to throw away (in boxes because I moved recently – in my last house they were all proudly on display in my bookshelves). Most of these are design and photography mags, and of course the whole back catalogue of lip, but there are a few glossies I keep around for reference. Not to reference the beauty tips or blow job tips, but to remind myself that people want more than this from their favourite mags. If I want to publish something that wouldn’t ever appear in one of these magazines, then I’m surely onto a winner.

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Mens magazine, Zoo Weekly, is at it again. Now they’ve launched a competition to find Australia’s ’sexiest feminist’.

There’s so many things wrong with this I don’t know where to start…

Search on for Australia’s ’sexiest feminist’
By Alyssa Braithwaite

September 03, 2007

THE men’s magazine which sparked outrage when it offered a $10,000 boob job as a competition prize has responded to its critics by launching a search for Australia’s sexiest feminist.

Zoo Weekly magazine angered health and women’s groups when it urged men to “win” their girlfriend a boob job by sending in shots of her cleavage.

The lad’s mag today revealed its new competition - a search “for the hottest girl in sensible shoes” - promising the winner a year’s supply of deodorant and a sexy photo shoot.

“If you hate men, we want to see photos of you in sexy lingerie,” the ad reads.

Magazine editor Paul Merrill said the new competition was the magazine’s way of offering its critics an olive branch.

“We did get our fair share of complaints when we launched the search to win your girlfriend a boob job, so we thought the best way to handle this was to redress the balance by launching the Search for Australia’s sexiest feminist,” Merrill said.

“We’re calling for feminists all over Australia to show that women can be sexy even if they disapprove of sexy women.” Read the full article here.

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…now’s your chance.

We know copies of lip can sometimes be hard to get hold of, so we’re giving you a sneak peak at one of our back issues: #12 - download the full mag in PDF format - FREE (scroll to the bottom of the page for the download link).

If you like what you see, there’s heaps more where that came from. We’re practically giving away our whole back issue catalogue! Check out our 2-for-1 offer: buy one issue of lip magazine, get one free.

Most of all, we’d like your feedback. Leave a comment and tell us what you think of issue 12.

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