Get Your Hands On It and AQSAZINE in the news

We're getting press! Thanks NOW magazine http://www.nowtoronto.com/books/story.cfm?content=167422 for picking up the zine and CBC radio http://www.radio-canada.ca/regions/ontario/Radio/Sitems/Index.asp?pk_region=25&id=76&IDEmissionFR=219&IDCat=6&leMois1=2009%2F03&sub=..%2F..%2F.

What do you think?

If you want to get a copy of the first issue email us at aqsazine@gmail.com. We'll hook you up!

Call for Submissions AQSAZINE ISSUE 2! Let's Talk about Sex and Immigration Baby!

Dear friends, lovers, sisters, allies, revolutionaries, haters and everyone in between.

Submit and spread the word about the AQSAZINE Double Issue on Immigration/Migration and Love/Sex/Marriage. Deadline for submissions May 15th 2009.

Submit if:

*Immigration and Migration: If you feel like a minority wherever you go…if your heart longs for somewhere you’ve never been but that’s burnt into your memory…If all your parents ever talk about is “back home”...If you spend your life trying to find your place… if your physical home is occupied, forgotten, or far away… if your life consists of various checkpoints, “visas in yo’ name”, lawyer consultations, applications, rejections… If you’ve been expelled, deported, refugized, rendered illegal, or erased by your “non-status”… If you’ve found a new "home away from home" that is warm, welcoming and REAL…If you’re searching for “home”—the place and the meaning…If you’ve found home in a person, community, people or state of mind… if you’ve found strength in your displacement…If you were never really given the choice…your expression is welcome here


*Love/Sex/Marriage: If you ever wonder what order the three words should come in, but often have no choice in the matter…If you believe in any or all of them and know Islam gives you the right to enjoy, even savor them… If you feel like you’ve failed your parents...If sex has been scary and filled with guilt for way too long…If you’ve stained your sheets and now you wonder what’s next?... if you have forbidden loves…if your body is someone else’s battleground…if you have (or think you have) been sexually assaulted…if fear, sex, and guilt have been twisted in your heart for far too long… if you risk so much of yourself and your safety to express love…if wherever you turn people try to marry to you off to a “handsome doctor/lawyer/engineer”…If your heart is in the right place, but your mind and body wonder……If you’ve asked many questions to which there were no answers...your expression is welcome here

Types of Submissions: Stories (fiction or non fiction); Poetry; Artwork, Photography, Visuals; media reviews; Articles, profiles, interviews; Self help booklets, tip sheets, flyers and pamphlets; Any other form of personal art or writing

Confidentiality: Submissions will not be reprinted without the author's permission. You can use your first and/or last name, a pen name, or even remain completely anonymous. We want you to feel safe in making a contribution. Send us your submissions, questions, resources, information aqsazine@gmail.com

Peace, love and hugs

AQSAZINE TEAM

Identity Uncrisis

Aqsazine identity


In our feature issue we claimed that this is a place for us to inspire each other and to simply be. We’ve received many inquiries as to who the “group behind the AQSAzine” is. Perhaps we can begin to answer that by stating who we are NOT.


AQSAzine is not an organization. We have no mandate. We thrive in chaos, have clashing personalities, and have differing opinions on just about everything.


AQSAzine is an idea, a forum, an entity created by individuals who have MANY histories and many futures. We each speak for ourselves, united by our individuality. We could never define ourselves because we wouldn’t know where to start. Even the words, images and ideas reflected in these pages belong to those of their authors, and push the limits of those physically putting the publication together. That is the point. WHO WE ARE is what you are holding in your hands as you read this. It will change, it will evolve, it will grow into many different things.


We reserve the right to hold ephemeral ideas. We reserve the right to be scatterbrained and contradict ourselves. We reserve the right to disagree, even with each other. And it is in the mess of this chaotic indecisiveness that we unite ourselves in our differences, and allow each other equal weight. THAT is the true nature of equality.


So, who are we?


Well…You’ll see us if you look hard enough.
You’ll hear us if you listen hard enough.
But you’ll never capture us because we’re not all the same thing. We’re not all in one place. We’re certainly don’t all hold the same ideas…


And as such, we refuse to pigeonhole ourselves under any circumstances. That is diversity. We speak for ourselves individually under the umbrella of the idea of “aqsa”….pushing beyond limits to discover who we are. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a journey, not a conclusion. And we all get a say in where we’re going.