Daughter

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PHONE TIME, written by Kristin Merrilees, is a publication about internet culture, technology, media, and everything in between.

     Daughter Zine describes itself as “created by every girl you know & every girl you'll never understand.” I first came across Daughter on Instagram and was quickly drawn to its striking visual presence, consisting of curated images, memes, and scans of illustrations and writing.
   To say that “girlhood” has had a bit of an online moment these past few years might be an understatement. Think girlbosses, girl dinners, girl math, hot girl walks, and just about every iteration of a “girl summer” you can imagine. But what many of these trends, and the flood of trend pieces that followed, lack is feminist politics. The kind that’s informed, imaginative, even radical.
   While Daughter Zine draws on imagery associated with girlhood and femininity, it takes girls and their intellects seriously. With the first issue in its archetype zine series called "Anarchist," it also takes the zine seriously as a medium, at a time when the form has increasingly been co-opted by corporations, startups, and major publishers.

Below is my conversation with Grace Anne McKean, founder and editor in chief of Daughter Zine, edited for clarity and length.

PHONE TIME: Hi Grace! Tell me a bit about your background and how Daughter Zine started.

GRACE ANNE MCKEAN: I have a background in editorial, art, and illustration, and that’s what I wanted to do for my career for a really long time. I had all of these qualities and values that I wanted to represent myself by as an artist, but I didn’t really understand how to do that while working under somebody else’s brand or magazine. So that’s how Daughter started.
   Daughter pairs that kind of hyperfemme, pink and girly aesthetic with the very hardcore feminist critique and publishing. It’s a very nice paradox that we balance between. It was really a feminist magazine for friends. But I think of Daughter as like a monolith, in the same way that Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ was. It’s not so much definable, but it’s sort of you know it when you see it.

PHONE TIME: How do you go about putting it together—on Substack, and then print and digitally?

MCKEAN: It’s kind of simultaneous. Before we had a biannual issue, which is still going on, which was more themed. We had "Devotion" and "Metamorphosis"—very vague, obscure themes.
   Our newest print edition, which will be every other month, is much more political. The theme every month is archetypical. So like, what does the contemporary anarchist look like through our eyes? And then our next issue is going to be “Martyr.” So what does the contemporary martyr look like, both from our Western point of view and with everything happening in Palestine right now.
   As for the online blog, it gives us the opportunity to play with all kinds of things that are outside of the thematic scheme.

PHONE TIME: I know Daughter publishes across different forms of writing, which seems like a very intentional choice.

MCKEAN: Yeah, we do poetry, essays, short stories. I have a background in poetry, so I knew I wanted to include that. I like magazines that publish fiction next to nonfiction. We’re sort of pivoting right now into a more essay-heavy direction, because it’s like the hot thing right now with Substack kind of blowing up.
   But I really love the idea of widening a space for critical thought that doesn’t require a hook or a quick summary to draw an audience in. It’s a lack of trust in the audience that I don’t really like, and I think a lot of young women can see through instantly.
   Being a zine online right now is like half marketing and half anti-marketing.

THE 21st CENTURY GIRL w/ DAUGHTER ZINE

DWG Diaries is a podcast from Dreamworldgirl Zine where we explore the magic of girlhood through the eyes of female and nonbinary creatives. Episode two is a fun, very special interview with Grace, the founder of Daughter, conducted by Daphne Bryant.

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