Shelby x SICK Magazine

Zine

Apr 19

ABOUT SICK MAGAZINE

SICK is an independent, thoughtful magazine by chronically ill & disabled people, founded & edited by Olivia Spring and designed by Kaiya Waerea. Founded in Norwich, UK in 2019, we are currently based out of Maine, USA and London, UK.

SICK is committed to elevating the voices of sick & disabled people by publishing essays, features, poetry, visual art, interviews, and more. Our aim is to increase representation of sick & disabled people in publishing and the arts, and to challenge the harmful stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding disability. We work in and with our slowness, pausing and resting when we need to. We believe, listen to, and support each other. We reject productivity as means of value, and celebrate our sick & disabled bodies.

We interviewed Olivia Spring, Editor and co-founder of SICK Magazine, as part of our research for the Bristol + Bath Creative R+D programme to find out more about their work and how it relates to the topic of Amplified Publishing.

Shelby X: Could you start by introducing SICK? What's the who, why, where, when and how?

Olivia: SICK is an independent print magazine by sick & disabled people publishing writing, poetry, art, and more. I’ve been sick with energy-limiting chronic illnesses for half of my life and struggled to imagine what my future would look like following university. I have been unable to work consistently or earn an income, which is where the idea for SICK originally came from. I felt that I needed to build a creative space for others like me, and I also wanted a way to work on something I believe in without having set hours or a non-disabled person as a boss or colleague. After graduating from Goldsmiths University with a degree in journalism, I moved to Norwich and launched our first issue in 2019, and issue 4 is coming soon!

It was a lot of work to set up the magazine initially — things like registering as a business, keeping track of finances, building a website, finding a designer to work with, creating a look and identity all took some time. I opened for submissions by sharing an open call on social media and reaching out to various people who I thought the mag might interest, and it has really just grown from there. We have an open submission window about once a year and produce each issue from there.

Shelby X: Could you talk about the role of online and offline spaces with SICK, particularly in relation to accessibility and being based internationally (in Maine, USA and London, UK)?

Olivia: I initially launched SICK at The Playhouse in Norwich, which was a small gathering with a raffle to raise funds for the next issue. I had planned for events to be somewhat frequent — launch parties for every issue, zine fairs, writing workshops & talks, etc.. I am originally from NYC, so I had a launch party at the Poets House while I was visiting family in 2019 in an effort to establish the magazine internationally and fundraise. COVID hit just before I began work on Issue 2, so obviously in-person events were put on hold.

When I created SICK, I was planning to live in the UK for the indefinite future and was aiming to apply for citizenship in a few years. But the pandemic changed everything and I ended up back in the US, and I now live in Maine. It was really strange to understand the impact this would have on SICK at first, because it is so established there — our designer Kaiya lives in London, most readers are located in the UK, as well as many stockists, our printers, and the fulfilment company we work with. It’s been almost two years running SICK from Maine, and I’ve kept pretty much everything about production the same.

The internet is of course hugely valuable to the disability community, allowing us to connect with people all around the world from our beds. While I do aim for our social media to provide a sense of community, a place to feel seen, and a resource to connect with others, it is not the core part of SICK, and online spaces are not something I heavily focus on. This really just comes down to personal preference; I love printed matter and wanted this idea of mine to take up physical space. I try to be active in both online and offline spaces, but in-person events are very difficult now and not something I currently have the capacity to try to figure out. In-person events are also, now more than ever before, inaccessible for a range of reasons. So I do try to keep the party online, in a way.

Shelby X: What impact does being independently published have on SICK?

Olivia: It’s great to have complete freedom and control of the magazine, which has always been very important to me. I would never want anyone to oversee my work or have to approve my decisions. It does mean a hefty load of work on my shoulders, and with a tight budget, there are resources I’m not able to utilise. For example, I would love to work with a distributor, but it’s not financially feasible at the moment. I can’t really imagine SICK not being independent and I’m not even sure what that would look like, to be honest!

Shelby X: Could you share some of the ways you are pushing back against productivity as a means of value and how you make the magazine sustainable, both financially and in terms of centering wellbeing?

Olivia: One way I aim to challenge productivity as a means of value is with the frequency of the magazine, and how it is produced. With my degree in journalism, I felt that so much in publishing revolves around strict deadlines, limited flexibility, and the pressure to be constantly producing work. This is not accessible for most sick & disabled people, so why would my publication work in the same way? I hope that by doing something a bit different, others will be encouraged to do things differently, too, or to question what the purpose is in doing things a certain way vs. another way. This is something I am constantly working on and thinking about. With issue 3, I felt pressure to have it out by a certain time until I asked myself why. I realised that it doesn’t really matter at all, and that I can do whatever I think is best - and what was best for me at the time was to have a bit of a break.

When working on the issue, I never want a contributor to feel that they must respond to edits by a certain date, or that they need to email me back within 24 hours. We don’t actually need all these strict deadlines, but rather a loose outline of our aims, with room to make changes when necessary.

This process is also what helps the magazine be sustainable. It means that I don’t get very overwhelmed, feel too rushed, or have too much pressure on myself. Rarely do I find that running the magazine has a negative impact on my wellbeing (aside from the annoying business side of things, like doing taxes). The slowness of letting each issue have its time out in the world without rushing to create the next also has to do with our finances. I nearly empty our bank account with the publication of each issue, and then build it back up again through sales, until we reach enough to do another issue.

Shelby X: If any, what's the relationship between SICK's content creators and it's readership/audience?

Olivia: I generally see all SICK contributors as overlapping with our audience — it’s not like I’m scoping people out to speak to our readers. Readers and followers are who see our call for submissions, and I want the publication to be accessible to them. It’s important to me that contributors aren’t all seen as established or well-known people. I want it to be a publication that anyone can submit to, while keeping a high quality of content.

Shelby X: What role does art play in SICK's mission of elevating the voices of sick and disabled people?

Olivia: I think a lot of people expect disabled people to produce work that is directly about being disabled, especially with writing. I hope the art that is published in SICK can be a bit refreshing in the sense that visual work may not seem immediately related to disability or illness, but is of course framed by the experience of the disabled artist. It’s also an opportunity to contrast the visuals often associated with illness; things like white hospital gowns and blue parking badges, boring pamphlets and depressing waiting rooms. Art is a chance to grab your attention and make you feel something; to declare that we are here and what we have to say or show matters.

Find out more about SICK Magazine:

Website: www.sickmagazine.com

Instagram: @aSICKmagazine