Q&A with Tash King of Bed Zine

Bed zine | Cover by Dana Kearley

SAD Mag got a sneak peek of Bed zine, a collection of visual art and writing by disabled artists that explores the complex thoughts and feelings they have about their beds. Tash King, Editor and Creative Director spoke with us in anticipation of the inaugural issue coming out at the end of April.

Bed zine brings layers of validation, learning, and understanding to what it feels like to be confined to space that’s both safe and suffocating—just like the soft, sometimes restricting layers of sheets and blankets on your bed.

What’s Bed Zine all about, and why did you decide to create a zine?

I created Bed zine because I had an existing interest in creating a disability publication. I had been mulling over what my angle would be, and nothing was clicking. Then one day, I had a migraine. I was lying in bed and thinking about how conflicted I felt about being there. I felt very safe and protected. I was able to rest and recuperate, but I simultaneously felt trapped and stressed out—almost oppressed by the comfort of bed. I was thinking about this contradiction and I was like, I bet a lot of people feel this way! So, I whipped up a call for submissions in that moment and posted it on Instagram the next day. There was a part of me that was like, no one will send in submissions like I’m not even going to be able to fill a zine. But, the response was amazing. I’m so delighted by the quality and quantity of the submissions I got.

The thing about bed is that it’s just this totally universal, neutral, relatable thing that in one form or another, everyone is going to have some sort of experience with and even folks who are not disabled or experience disability at a time in their life, have experienced the multifaceted nature of what bed can be.

Editor & Creative Director Tash King | Photo by Ethan Barry

What made it special for you to do a zine, specifically?

I think that there’s something sort of inherently flexible about the zine as a medium that lends itself to this sort of necessary fluctuating nature of disability. There can’t be hard deadlines and there can’t necessarily be hard rules. It has to be accessible both financially and in every sense of the word. A zine just felt easy in a sense because it’s DIY, so it’s within the limits of my own disability and my limited resources. But it also felt like something that would be easily digestible and accessible by other disabled people.

How has it felt working with a community of contributors that understand the unique experience you have with your bed?

It’s been so amazing. I think the dream as a human being is to feel understood. When I first became housebound and had to stop working, and my disability became more severe, I was struck by the fact that I didn’t have any disabled community around me at all. Not even reflected in the media—I felt so alone in that. The zine is an opportunity for me to put an idea out into the world and then get to see it reflected back in so many interesting ways.

How has the process been creating your inaugural issue?

It’s the first thing that I’ve done since I’ve become more disabled and stopped being able to work. I was quite nervous about what it would look like, and it’s my first experience creating a zine as well, so there were some unknowns. I have done it in a way that is completely accessible to me and therefore made it not stressful at all. So, I have really soft deadlines for myself. I don’t create unrealistic expectations. I couch everything with lots of time and rest for both me and for everyone involved.

Bed zine | Collage and poem by Clara Akissi Nzambi

Is there a piece in this issue you are the most excited about?

I obviously love them all. But, I start and end the zine with two collages accompanied by sentences. Both of them managed to, in my opinion, sort of summarize the entire universe, the galaxy, the thesis of this whole zine in their simple sentences. The first being, “My bed: a safe haven and a net that keeps me trapped,” is beautiful poetry by Clara Akissi Nzambi. And the second one, “When I am in my bed, my true self is revealed,” by Juan Sebastián Cassiani. Both works did such an incredible job pairing text and images to convey the profound, complicated feelings people can have towards their beds.

Follow Bed zine on Instagram and keep a lookout here to purchase your copy at the end of April. There will also be copies available at The Paper Hound.