The Shrieking Violet

The Shrieking Violet is an alternative magazine about Manchester, written by Natalie Bradbury. 

Examples of some of the articles and themes she includes in the magazine:- 

• History of street names
• B of the Bang sculpture
• Creative writing and stories
• Feminism stances
• Reminiscent stories from born and bred Mancunians. 

Natalie started making the zine after completing her degree, using this project as a productive pass time whilst unemployed. With her interests lying in journalism, she was not so much interested in the the design and artwork of the magazine, but the content. She also blogs but finds the blog layout limiting as the newest post is always at the top of the page. 

Design: Natalie showed us some of her earlier issues, and explained how the design and production of the magazine had changed and improved in the later issues. She used boxed in writing and photographs behind the text, often making it illegible. 

Content: Since those earlier days of the Zine, Natalie has learned to collaborate with other artists and writers, bringing a range of perspectives which has helped to shape the design and content. Each issue has a different artist who designs the front cover. Images and drawings feature throughout the zine. Each issue also has a recipe, which Natalie includes in hope that this gives the reader a reason to keep hold of the zine. 

Inspirations for The Shrieking Violet came from her father's collection of Punk zines. 

Distribution: Always leave some zines at The Cornerhouse, at least one for Salford Zine Library and then distribute to various cafe's and bars around the city. 

Also make a PDF file and have an online version of the zine.