Celebrating Witches and Wild Women With Ravenous Zine
Ravenous Zine
After reading the notorious 90s book Women Who Run With the Wolves, enduring a bad boss, and surviving a nervous breakdown, Mallory Lance decided she needed to reorient her mission in life. So she used the philosophies from the book, the money she’d saved from working for the office tyrant, and the emotional wherewithal she gained in recovery to make Ravenous, a zine by and for “the wild woman.”
The first volume sold out in two months, finding a home in indie bookstores and crystal shops across the country. Ravenous is full of essays about personal journeys, like one about seeking wisdom from older women, as well as how-tos, like a guide to making hand-formed incense. “I grew up with really confused ideas about what something is worth because we can just buy something at Target or H&M and it’s really cheap, but that’s because it was made by people who are making less than a living wage,” Lance explains. Accordingly, the first volume of Ravenous is dedicated to “retooling our understanding of what it takes to make something by making things ourselves and then hopefully by supporting other local makers.”
Ravenous might be out of place among scrappy hand-folded zines, with its thick paper stock and stiff spine: On her way to make a DIY publication, Lance ended up creating something that looks and feels like a magazine, with full-bleed imagery and careful kerning. “But it was created under the ethos of zines,” she says. “Where it’s like I just had this idea, I don’t have someone backing me, I’m just going to do it and put it out into the world.”
At January’s Women’s March, one of the repeated signs read, “We are the granddaughters of the witches you couldn’t burn.” The next month, a movement began to “bind Trump” using an ancient spell intended to impede the President. Over the summer, Vogue celebrated Witchy Week for the summer solstice. Whether in response to an uptick in anti-feminism or an increased interest in spirituality, witches have come to symbolize resistance, sisterhood, and strength. In her editor’s letter, Lance writes that many of the stories in Ravenous are about “uncovering the ways of the wild women who were largely snuffed out in the witch hunts of The Inquisition and various political movements that targeted women who didn’t fit within societal standards—women who presented a threat to male dominance throughout the world.”
Volume two, out in June, will focus on friendship and “creating your wolf pack,” Lance says, while the third will explore activism. In addition to the zine, Ravenous Media will also produce events informed by Lance’s own style. Once, she created a nine-course dinner comprised of the blackest foods found in nature. Another meal, for Atlas Obscura, was “inspired by the local energy cycle” and featured ravioli with wild herbs Lance foraged in a Hudson Valley town park.
Whether around a table or on the page, Lance gathers creative women with a similar vision. In Ravenous Volume One, they’re the people you’d want with you on a camping trip, or sitting nearby on a subway when the lights go out, which is to say they’re all resourceful, and generous about sharing. Black Seed Bagels baker Dianna Daoheung explains how to make sourdough starter from wild yeasts, Sarah Faith Gottesdiener writes about how aligning with the moon’s cycles can lead to positive life change (she would be the one with soothing words when the L lurches to a stop under the East River).
While showcasing women who are on their way, Lance hopes Ravenous will inspire readers to start and continue their own creative journeys. Without any advertising, she’s already laid ground for growth: Ravenous has more than 13,000 followers on Instagram, and stockists have reached out from England and Australia. When asked what’s next, Lance can’t hide the thrill of presenting her work to the world: “Seeing the way that it’s connected to people has been so amazing and beautiful and has been so nourishing to me. I’m really excited to keep it going.”
