The Feminist and Queer Collective (FAQ) is a non-hierarchical, student collective based out of the University of Manitoba’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program. For the fourth year they are accepting submissions for their annual Feminist and Queer review, which works to increase awareness and knowledge of feminist and queer issues through the voices, opinions and experience of U of M undergraduate students from all faculties.
“[We accept] anything that can you could publish in a visual format. Our goal is to showcase feminist and queer voices at the undergraduate population – not just from Women’s and Gender Studies disciplines. [We are open to people] from Fine Arts or Physics or any discipline. If [someone’s] medium is not writing we still want to showcase their work,” says Ryn Broz, who is part of the FAQ collective and a student in Women’s and Gender Studies at the U of M.
“Any poems, photographs, artwork, drawings, manifestos – whatever you have that you want published,” adds Charly Wreggit, a fellow FAQ member and Women’s and Gender studies student.
The publication accepts submissions from undergraduate students from any faculty, in any medium that can be published in book form. Their inclusive list of subjects includes; sex work, race, class, reproductive rights, capitalism, ageism – essentially anything that fits into their anti-oppressive mandate. Past submissions include photography by Dayna Danger, a comic by Demaris Wilson, and writing by Kaitlin Moen.
“[We would like] to broaden [our submissions] to more facilities,” says Wreggit.
“We solicit submissions [within the Women’s and Gender Studies] classes, and we [go to classes outside of the program] like the anthropology classes on sex and sexuality, or sociology classes on family, and we advertise in Fine Arts buildings as well. [Advertising the publication] outside of liberal arts classes is hard, but we really want to showcase the entire undergraduate perspective,” says Broz.
There are currently 10 members of the FAQ collective, who are all majors or minors in the Women’s and Gender Studies program. When the publication first started the collective had to seek outside funding (such as the Margaret Laurence Endowment Fund, and the Rainbow Pride Mosaic), but now it is completely funded by the faculty.
“In my first year we had to apply for a lot more outside grants. We [received] an Arts Endowment grant, and went through other disciplines and areas. That took up a lot more of our time, and now we can focus on creating [a better] publication. [We work with] graphic designers, publishers, editors, and [can focus on soliciting more] submissions. We will even work with people and give them feedback [on their work],” says Broz.
“[Feminist and queer voices] are normally the first voices to be shut down in publications, so this a great chance to get your voice heard and get published as a undergrad from a feminist and queer perspective.”
The next Feminist and Queer review will be launched January, 2013. The FAQ collective is currently accepting submissions for their next publication until Sept. 29. You can email your submission or direct any questions towards faqcollective@gmail.com.
