WHIZZBANGER NEWSLETTER #1 and #2, A4, 2pp, $1 ($2 outside USA) in US cash only from Shannon Colebank, P.O. Box 5591, Portland, OR 97228, USA. Following a crippling hike in US postal charges, Shannon's set up this interim newsletter to keep in touch with everyone between issues of Flashpoint and The Whizzbanger Guide to Zine Distributors. Each issue updates other interested publishers on Shannon's trawl through postal handbooks for loopholes in the regulations, together with short polemic on such issues as the injustic of female gender verification at the Olympics, and a call-to-arms for a new Feminist Pirate Radio Network.
THE EXCHANGE by Jeff VanderMeer and Eric Schaller, A6, 36pp, $6:99 ($7:99 outside USA) from Hoegbotton & Sons, P.O. Box 4248, Tallahassee, Florida 32315, USA (e-mail: vanderworld@hotmail.com; http://www.vandermeer.redsine.com). Copiously illustrated by Eric Schaller, The Exchange is a VanderMeer short story set in, and packaged as a commemorative booklet for, the Festival of the Freshwater Squid held each year in the fantastical city of Ambergris. Fans of VanderMeer's creation will be delighted at this ideosyncratic extension of his Ambergris universe; others may find $7 rather expensive for a single short story!