One of the Kids, Caregivers & Community Practice Space Coordinators, China Martens first participated in activities for children at the AMC when she led a zine making workshop in 2009. In this picture you can see China reading from a zine made during the workshop with two of our participants. In addition to all of her work organizing for the practice space, China will be a presenter for the Radical Community Care session at this year's AMC.
China is a co-founder of Kidz City, a radical childcare collective in Baltimore. She is currently collaborating with Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Mai’a Williams to create This Bridge Called My Baby: Legacies of Radical Mothers, an anthology centering the writing of mothers of color, low-income mothers, and marginalized mothers. In 2012, Don't Leave Your Friends Behind:Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities, created by Victoria Law and China, was published by PM Press. "A collection of concrete tips, suggestions, and narratives on ways that non-parents can support parents, children, and caregivers in their communities, social movements, and collective processes," we are very excited that supporters of our Indiegogo campaign are able to receive copies of Don't Leave Your Friends Behind for a number of donation levels!
China is also the creator of The Future Generation, a series of zines about radical parenting, which she began in 1990. In 2007, she published a book by the same title with Atomic Books, featuring entries selected from sixteen years of material. Work by China has been featured in Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers, Baltimore Indypendent Reader, HipMama, WIN Magazine, and Revolutionary Motherhood. She also is a zinestress extraordinaire producing titles such as BWI Spy, Supermarket Supermodel, and Catbird; was the submissions editor for the collaborative mama/papa zine project Mamaphiles #4 “Raising Hell”; a columnist for DIY newsprint publication Slug and Lettuce (from 1994 to 2004) and won Baltimore City Paper “Best Zine” Award for I was . . . a Student Nurse!
When you support the Kids, Caregivers & Community Practice Space, you are supporting the work of media-making parents like China, who continue to be fierce advocates for the support and inclusion of families in all spaces!