I started Ponytail in the summer of 2010, with the simple idea of creating something I would like to read, something exciting that was filled with fresh voices.  Like many creative careers and pursuits, it’s pretty hard to start out as a writer, there is a lot of self-doubt and rejection and it’s difficult (as cliched as it may sound) to get a foot on the ladder. I wanted to make something that was approachable for anyone to submit to, a sort of  ‘lo-fi literature review’, that was firmly about literature without being stuffy or haughty. Also, rather selfishly as a writer, it made me start writing more myself as well as viewing my work with a more critical, editorial eye. I came up with the name Ponytail because all my other options were mocked into non-existence by my friends and at 3am in the morning, a pun on tale/tail seemed Wilde-ly witty.

I knew very little about running zines when I started out, and it’s definitely been a fun and rewarding learning curve in both an editorial and design sense. Each issue has a specific theme, and this has proven to be a really great way to curate a lot of different voices and ideas. Although originally, Ponytail started out as a short story zine only, over time I’ve opened up submissions to also include poetry, personal essays and comic strips which has definitely given more variety to the content. I suppose this has been inspired by my own discoveries and developing tastes for things like the personal essays of Lena Dunham and David Sedaris, a rediscovered folder stuffed full of Richard Brautigan’s poetry and the humour pieces in McSweeneys. On the design side of things, when all the zines are laid out side by side you can see how I’ve definitely faffed around with logos and visual identity a lot. Finally, with the latest issue (#4 The Food Issue), I’ve settled on a design I’m really happy with and I’ve started to hand-bind and risograph print them.

There are lots of exciting things happening in 2013 for Ponytail. The next issue (#5 “Brief Encounters”) should be out in February and there have been tons of brilliant submissions so far. I’m particularly excited about what is probably the best cover of all time by illustrator Will Daw. Other projects include a tie-in podcast with readings, interviews and other pieces, and a separate publication I’ve been curating since the summer called “No-One Understands Me” which is a collection of people’s embarrassing teenage diaries. As I’m moving abroad in a couple of weeks I’m hoping to distribute through a few more shops and distros in the UK and beyond.  In the meanwhile, all issues are available to buy on the Ponytail blog.

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Find more zines we’ve featured here.

Ferment is an illustrated literary zine put together by Paul Askew, James Weiner and myself, Sarah Plant. For each issue we ask sixteen writers and illustrators to contribute.

Every issue we choose a theme, the theme is widely interpreted by our invited contributors.

Initially writers respond to the theme, then illustrators respond to those writers’ poems or short stories. We pair the illustrators and writers, then publish the work as a 12 page black and white newspaper printed by The Newspaper Club.

Ferment began because we wanted to do something creative together that we had control over. Outside of the 9-5, it was fun to make something for other people to enjoy and an experimental project for us. Never a profit making project, the cost of producing zine is covered by selling it locally in Oxford & on our website.

Our themes have ranged from Naked, A Single Letter, to Cities and Upside Down with covers illustrated by Al Murphy, Mister Mourao & Matt Blease.

Illustrators and writers sometimes surprise us by taking the theme in interesting and bizarre directions like ‘Potatoes’ in issue 3- Food. Once the pairings are all in, its my job to set the layout of the zine and the tone for that issue. This is my favorite bit of Ferment, as the contributors’ work is so good and bloody funny.

Recently, as well as producing the zine, we have been playing with the idea of Ferment Mini. Poems & stories printed using miniature printers like Bergs Little Printer.

James custom made a mini printer to print some of our poems & short stories. The result, pocket sized pieces of poetry with illustrations to keep or give to friends.

Ferment mini is playful and interesting, but there are some downsides. Its narrow column length (receipt sized) means some stories end up over a metre long! We don’t intend to offer Ferment mini as a service at the moment, nevertheless its an interesting addition to the Ferment story.

If you are interested in contributing to Ferment, email us & you can buy issues of the zine here.

Find out more:
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Find more zines we’ve featured here.

The theme of Hidden Spaces has a real lure for me. I started thinking about all the hidden spaces I’ve had the privilege to discover/be invited into over the last year or so. My plan is to blog about a few of those spaces…

So, first up: the Greenwich Peninsula. I was writer-in-residence there, alongside the poet Aoife Mannix, as part of a project called Almost an Island? in the autumn of 2008. I fell in love with the mysterious, industrial, moonscape of the west side of the peninsula – a far cry from the increasingly smart, regenerated east side. The peninsula, like so much of the land along the Thames to the east of London, was a dumping ground – a venue for the dirty industries that the city relied on but didn’t want to see. The very word, peninsula, which the OED defines as “A piece of land that is almost an island, being nearly surrounded by water”, and which comes from ‘penumbra’ – the edge of a shadow and ‘insula’ – island, intrigues me – a place of shadows, an almost place, not quite land, not quite water.

Here’s one of the short pieces I wrote as part of my residency.

Beach

There’s a sign saying the footpath’s closed, but no-one to police it. It’s an empty part of the city; a lorry now and again, the driver perched high in his metal castle, his eye line way above your head, whistling.

The tide is neither here nor there. There’s no barrier, but I suspect they wish you wouldn’t walk amongst the treasures. Here at the top it’s all plastic colours. Bags hold onto their contents. Blue pot pourri – dyed husks that have forgotten their smell. A red strap that used to hold things together. Further in, the colours grey. Cracked glass. Feather soft ash. And down here by the shore, rusted up shapes, like tempura vegetables. A nail, a hook, the loop from a long rotted tarpaulin.

I prefer here to the tarmacked path, dissected in two, punctuated by red signs in anticipation of emergencies. Here, moss clings slick green to concrete corners. Cobble stones bridge the shore. Here, the water is closer. It’s just a step across to the stacks of windows on the far shore. But standing there, I wouldn’t feel the crunch and give of cracked ceramic and rusted metal and rock underneath my feet. Standing there, for too long, I would be asked to leave.

Find out more about Sarah Butler here.

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Hidden Spaces – a month of blogs by members about their hidden space – whether they be real, imagined, unbuilt, cut-off from the public, demolished, spiritually significant or politically sublimated. Read more from the series.