Deep in the halls of power (or perhaps, a little too close to home), crooning incantations of ‘yeas’ and ‘nays’ are chanted behind closed doors, making certainties of dignity further obscured and intangible. 

While swearing that liberty is the most sacred of virtues, decisions are being made that defy our right to bodily autonomy and self-determination. A seemingly endless series of laws and court rulings across the country seek to take away our ability to access the care we need, leaving us (and those we love) in desperate positions, having to concede to physical, mental, and emotional burden. But, dear one, can they take away our identity and the ways we define ourselves? Can they take away our ability to care for ourselves and one another?

We invite you to consider: what does protest, defiance, or solidarity in the face of this oppression look like? Where do we turn when formal decision makers, including the courts, base their decisions on narratives that exclude the perspectives and experiences of those who they seemingly seek to serve? In what ways can we affirm our own identities, reclaiming both our bodies and our futures? What certainties remain in our hearts and minds as we navigate treacherous seas, hand in hand? 

In collaboration with Sound Justice Lab, this issue of MALA LECHE invites a wide range of submissions of prose, poetry, short stories, and visual art (protest posters, anyone?) from women, non-binary, trans*, and gender-expansive artists from the Central Virginia area, and invite creatives to explore varied representations of this theme.

The theme was conceived by Sri Kodakalla and Ramona Martinez with support from a team of individuals at Sound Justice Lab. Sound Justice Lab (SJL) is a collective of advocates, artists, and academics whose work focuses on the law and its limits. SJL is a space for exploring creative and everyday responses to legal failures and erasures. SJL uses research, advocacy, and creative practice to amplify and support the voices often omitted by formal legal processes.

All submissions are due by email to heyfucc@gmail.com by Sunday, June 2, 2024 (extended deadline!). This ninth issue will be printed in black-and-white, so please keep that in mind when submitting work. 

We welcome all work that is considered too politically radical for the commercial press. We welcome work that doesn’t appear radical at first, but readies and tills the soil for future seeds. We welcome work that reflects your reality. For safety or privacy purposes, you may submit your work anonymously or with a nom-de-plume, if you wish. 

Upon production of the issue, contributors will be paid a stipend of $100 for their work and given personal copies of the ninth issue to share with friends. Submissions that are not selected will be considered for future issues.

MALA LECHE is a radical art zine featuring art & writing by women, non-binary, trans*, and gender-expansive artists from Central Virginia. The publication is produced by Bad Milk Press in partnership with The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative (The Bridge PAI). Conceived during a time of physical separation, this zine creates an opportunity to collaborate and present our work outside of the gallery space in an impactful way. We believe that authentic creation is a radical act, even more so when it is shared. We envision MALA LECHE as a testament to our inevitable future, one without fascism, capitalism, and white supremacy.

Print issues of MALA LECHE are free and available at local businesses and art centers in the Charlottesville area (while copies last!), with growing distribution across the Central VA area. Read online versions of past issues on this page of our website: Archives.

After the submission deadline, co-founders, Sri Kodakalla and Ramona Martinez, and a team of folks at Sound Justice Lab will review submissions and selected contributors will be contacted by mid June 2024. Content that is not selected for this issue will be considered for subsequent issues. Following content selection, this issue of MALA LECHE will be produced, printed, and available for distribution in July 2024.

Submissions for this issue of MALA LECHE are due by email on Sunday, June 2, 2024 at midnight. Women, non-binary, trans*, and gender-expansive artists and writers from Central Virginia are eligible to submit.

For a complete submission, artists/writers are asked to submit the following materials: 

  • $5 suggested donation (payable online HERE to Bad Milk Press & The Bridge PAI) *

  • Send a maximum of (3) visual art/writing submissions to heyfucc@gmail.com. Within this email, please let us know if you’d like to be identified by your name or a nom-de-plume. 

* To offset the production costs of MALA LECHE and to support paying our artists, we’re asking applicants to submit a small $5 donation. This amount covers a maximum of (3) submissions per person. 

Visual art submissions

We accept all visual art submissions; however, the most successful for zine printing are drawings, illustrations, paintings, prints, or graphic design. Please submit high-quality images of your work. All submitted visual art will be resized for the zine. 

  • Feel free to submit work that is in color, but keep in mind that color images may be edited to be black-and-white!

  • Optional: Submit a brief short statement about what this work means to you or how it fits with MALA LECHE.

Writing submissions

We accept poems, short stories, satire, how-to’s, art criticism & reviews, as well as essays about: magic, anti-fascist resistance, the lives of little known radicals, a local policy issue you really care about, gardening, really whatever! Share your reality as is, or share a vision of what the future could be or hold.

  • Be conscientious about the length of your written pieces (think zine!). 

This prompt invites a myriad of directions for creative fodder, but a few considerations to fuel your fire might include:

  • A love letter to yourself or who you once were or wish to be (past, present, and future)

  • A memoriam for a loved one, a stranger you wish you had known, or an idea / concept

  • A manifesto asserting intentions or visions of a future you wish to see for yourself or for others

  • The anatomy of a choice you made about your own body

  • An anecdote of your relationship with time, memory, or the experiential burden associated with finding the care you need

  • A reflection on the ways things are or the emotions you carry and sit with

  • A creative re-envisioning of: 

    • Your sensations of feeling at home in your body for the first time

    • Your first encounters with ‘sex ed’ and how that changed you

    • How a doula or becoming a doula influenced your view on our body

    • Conversations you’ve had with community members who either identified with or didn’t identify with your values

  • A resource sheet on ways to enact daily disruptive forms of protest, or how to create/find community

  • An educational invitation on a topic important to you that you wished others paid more attention to

  • Illuminations of herbal remedies, recipes, or magic passed down through generations

xoxo
Sri Kodakalla & Ramona Martinez