I’m heading off to the 2018 Omaha Zine Fest, and wanted to share my journey about re-discovering my love for all things zines, creating them, sharing them, and talking with other zine creators. This has been an incredible journey and my passion for zine culture runs high.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve rediscovered a long time passion: Zines! A while back a friend, Mary, was making them. Through our conversations she drew me in. Her flair was converting old Live Journal blog posts into zines, and then bad goth poetry. She then introduced me to Charissa Lucille, the creator of the Fem Static Zine and owner of Wasted Ink Zine Distro (WIZD).
This introduction led me to create my first zine: Please don’t call me a Lesbian, I’m a Freak. I traded most of them at my first zine fair, and then other people bought copies. Then WIZD asked for a few copies and I made a little money. Then I went to a workshop on how to make mini-zines and got fired up. I set out to convert old photographs into this format. Desert My Heart was born. It is a collection of 35mm photographs that I shot in the late 1980’s through the mid-1990s. I almost let out a squee at the copy shop; I was so excited seeing these photos in print, some of them for the very first time.
My latest creation is The Little Buddhist Zine. This may or may not be a series, but I had fun making it. I even asked a friend to contribute one of his meditation drawings. If it does become a series I hope to include more of his work.
But what are zines you may ask? Traditionally these small publications (Zines) were a way of disseminating information in an informal format. Lots of information can be put in a 16-page booklet format. It is used in everything from non-profits to individuals who have something to say. A few famous comic strips started out as free zines. While I actually created two recipe zines from my food blog, in our marketing we were calling them “books.” Then it struck us that these collections were actually zines.
Typically cafes were the place to find these incredible little magazines, and then distros started popping up, usually in a record store. From there, places that are dedicated to the preservation of zines came about. Denver has a Zine Library that takes donations from zinesters (zine creators). There are university libraries committed to preserving zines as well.
Zines are a really exciting creative outlet for me. I can push myself in both writing and designing pages. There really is no right or wrong way in creating a zine. There is the act of creating itself.
You can contribute to my zine making efforts over at Patreon. I’d love it if you joined in helping to support independent publishing. I also create videos, and write poetry.
You can read more about zines here.
Learn how to make a mini-zine.
Here’s an explanation on how to make a zine.
If you have a cool zine link, send it to us, we’ll start a resource page.