Zine Reviews
Issue #23
By Amber Drea
Published: March 1st, 2005 | 4:47pm
Swivel
Volume I, Number 1
Edited by Brangien Davis
96 perfect-bound pages
swivelmag.com
Described as “The Nexus of Women and Wit,” Swivel is a Seattle-based literary magazine that focuses on female writers and humor. Editor Brangien Davis’ prime motivation for creating the publication is to dispel the widely accepted belief that females aren’t funny. And she succeeds to a certain level, though these gals still can’t quite compete with the likes of David Sedaris.
Spanning short fiction, memoir, poetry, and comics, the stories collected in this first issue address topics such as marriage, religion, puberty, and small-town mentality. Aimee Bender contributes her usual gimmicky surrealism with “Lady of the Mail,” which is the third in a series involving the characters Penny and her robber. Ali Davis tells her hilarious account of working with some desperate actresses on a practice run of a new reality TV show. The three ladies of the Typing Explosion offer two of their spontaneously produced poems, which are both so good you can’t believe they just made them up on the spot. But probably the best moment of all is during Laura Weedman’s “Diary of a Journal Reader.” She confesses to her boyfriend that she’s been reading his journal and thinks it will be the deal breaker, the reason he’ll finally dump her: “Like when my ex-husband peed in the bed and I got so mad I slapped myself in the face.”
There’s a definite deficit in the women’s humor department, which Swivel will hopefully continue to reduce with the release of its second issue, scheduled for spring 2005.
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