Issue #1

Our first issue of Homecoming Zine opens with a question:

What is Homecoming? 

The concept of homecoming is defined and explored, distorted and pieced together by the artists and creatives that have contributed to this first edition of Homecoming Zine. With fourteen contributions ranging from prose about chronic illness and coronavirus to collage of Charlie Brown shoes, the work in this first edition expands from the United Kingdom, across the Atlantic Ocean and spilling over to Europe. Our contributors have only two certainties in common: identity as someone who is disabled, chronically ill, a learning disability or with a long-term mental health illness, and the core concept of finding Homecoming.

Our cover, depicting an individual looking outside from the in, reflects a sense of being and moment that nearly all disabled individuals can identify with- isolation from the outside and the 'other'- whether voluntary or involuntary. We ask you to explore looking through the windows that our contributors open to you, and look to find your own sense of Homecoming.

This first edition also includes a short piece by the disability activist Jess, otherwise known as The Chronic Iconic and their own experience of Homecoming during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

 

Content:

- Stop Calling it Home by Eva Lewis

- Reflections of Shoes by Milly Aburrow

- Outside in Bed by Hailey Mullock

- I am still here MS by D. Green

- Seven Beds by Hannah Turner

- Anxiety by Angela Marshall

- Untitled by Max Middlewood

- 3 Doses by James Sunderland

- Medusa by Eva Lewis

- Spoonie by Ellie Cook

- Coronavial by Mark Blackburn

- The future without tomorrow by Becca Wight

- What do you see by Carol Chiang

- The Light by Jenine Ampudia

 

 

Contributers:

Milly Aburrow

She / Her

Milly Aburrow is a current 2nd year student at Bath Spa University, studying fine art. Her practice currently evolves exploring gender, sexuality and stereotypes associated with food, embedded within our society. Due to her disability, left-side hemiplegia, Milly also likes to create art surrounding hemiplegia , and how it personally effects her day-to-day life, and her identity.

 

Instagram: @portfolio.milly

 

Jenine Ampudia 

She / Her

Jenine Ampudia is an artist and friend whose work primarily focuses on mental health. She is particularly interested in navigating the world as a mad, neurodivergent human bean. She also paints dogs. In her spare time she enjoys creating zines and is currently obsessed with watching a boxing anime with her partner. 

 

Instagram: @brujaonpizza

 

Mark Blackburn

He/Him

Mark Blackburn was an ME pioneer in the late 80s when it was called Yuppie Flu. Nonetheless, he managed to complete a reasonably successful career in retail. He is now a writer in the South West of England, and has had short stories and works of creative non-fiction published online and in print. Oh, and he’s self-published a successful children’s book, Brian the Barrington Bear.

 

Website: www.markblackburn.co.uk

Twitter: @markblackburn

Instagram: @mdhblackburn

 

Ellie Cook

She / Her

Ellie Cook is a Film student based in Worcester who was diagnosed with AOSD earlier this year. She has a love for visuals and photography as well as moving image and enjoys expressing herself through poetry. 

 

Instagram: @elzportfolio.jpg

 

Carol Chiang

She / Her

Carol is a 19-year-old Londoner who makes illustrations and other random and spontaneous pieces of art on mental health and life in general. Her work aims to combine illustration, collage, and words from her personal experience into one to produce something relatable to her audience.

 

Instagram: @anxiouslittlemusings

 

 

D. Green

He/Him

I have suffered with MS for seventeen years. After giving up work at 34 years old because my body couldn’t take anymore. I felt lost with that frustration which built up so quick, I had to find an out let, which is when my pen first hit blank pages penning how I felt, never looking back on what I now love doing.  I am also a free verse poet.

 

Instagram: Writing_chronically

 

Eva Lewis

She / They

Eva Lewis is a poet, essayist and short fiction writer examining emotional inheritance, domestic abuse, mental health and neuro and gender diversity. The pandemic has made them reflect in particular on how hidden disability is perceived and denied validity in public consciousness. Their favourite artists include poet Natalie Linh Bolderston and photographer Francesca Woodman.

 

Instagram: @e.va.el

Website: lewiseva.wordpress.com/

 

 

Angela Marshall

She / Her

Angela is a poet, playwright, author and actress from North East England.  She lives with her husband and two daughters.  Her writing focuses on life and loss following her miscarriages, however she writes about her mental health openly and honestly as well.

 

 

Instagram: @angela_writes_life_and_loss

 

Hailey Mullock

She / Her

I am an emerging collage artist who works with found and recycled object.  My work is inspired by ideas of memory, history, and home and how these connect individuals together.I am interested in how people past and present record aspects of their lives in different ways. I currently live in Toronto, Ontario.

 

Instagram: @commonplacecrafts

Website: Haileymullock.com

 

Max Middlewood

He/Him

Max is a painter , who taught himself to paint during a time of physical and mental illness , as a way to give his life meaning and happiness. It still inspires hope and purity into his life today, acting both as a diary entry & as a powerful form of self therapy.

 

Instagram: @maxmiddlewood

 

James Sunderland

He/They

James is a writer-poet and artist whose work focuses on identity, placehood and their own experiences with mental health and chronic illness. They are currently in their final year of studying Writing at the Royal College of Art, and spends their spare time writing experimental poetry. 

 

Instagram: @jamesesunderland 

Website:  jamessunderland.co.uk

 

Hannah Turner

She / Her

Hannah is a 25 year old writer living with complex chronic illnesses. Her writing focuses on disability and pop culture. Her words have appeared in Refinery 29, Digital Spy and The Metro. She lives between Amsterdam & London, and is currently studying an MA in education policy. 

 

instagram: @hannahdotmay

Twitter: @hannahmay111

 

Becca Wight

She/Her

 

Becca is a prose, poetry and playwright whose work has always focused deeply on her activism regarding mental health, chronic illnesses, classism and sexism. She has a love for creating impact through use of alliteration and poignant imagery.

 

Instagram: @becca_wight