INTERVIEW WITH EMMALEE CONNER (posted october 22, 2007)
how did you get involved in zines/d.i.y. publishing?

When I was getting into punk I was really enamored by the whole riot grrrl movement. I researched as much as I could about it and found a lot in the library about zines. Thirteen year-old
me sat in the main library in downtown Houston TX reading Angry Women in Rock's interview with Kathleen Hanna, panting at the idea of crazy bitches doing whatever the fuck they wanted on stage and in paper. I guess it was all downhill from there.

why do you continue making paper zines in the age of the internet? how do you think the internet has affected the world of paper zines?

I guess I like the idea of tangible things left behind. I'm a big hoarder and rooter of all things bygone and forgotten. (Which explains moving across the country several times with a giant suitcase of nothing but paper... not even books or zines... just paper). The Internet, although important in my life for communication purposes, is way to abstract for me. I need hard proof of lives lived. Blood and shit stains to prove it. The Internet definitely seems to have made the "world of zines" much more accessible to more people. That's probably pretty positive.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?

Usually i take the writing and drawings I've been working on for the duration of time I've gone with out publication and slowly piece together a storyline (which usually contains massive references to art, music, and literature I've consumed in the duration of the creation of the final product: zine). It usually takes me a few months to put it all together. Then i usually spend a few days with the final touches, drinking too much of mood-altering substances, obsessing, and reviewing it; then mad dashing to office depot to make copies. This last issue of "toothworm" was mostly layed out in a teal green tour van, hungover and deaf.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you've been involved?

I'm not really sure. I guess I've changed the way I've done a lot of stuff. I think that there are definite trends that have changed. When i first started reading zines, it seemed like it was a really wonderfully confessional medium. A way to vent feelings and secrets with out fear or harsh criticism. These days it seems like the opposite traits are revered. Like it's more important to make snooty references to post-modern society or talk about being a drunk fuck-up. And I know these things are valid too, but I miss the days when it felt okay to reveal too much. And although there seems to be a healthy anti-technology backlash I'd like to put my two cents in: fuck photoshop.

are you "out" to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don't understand?

I guess I'm occasionally "out". I definitely don't pass my zine out to everyone. I distro it on tour and through Paper Trail and send it to friends but, to be honest, I'm always a little apprehensive of letting everyone know I write a zine. My dad has all the zines i did as a teenager in a file somewhere, but ever since i started "toothworm," I've been too afraid to send him a copy because I write a lot about him. I guess I don't really explain it to people who don't understand.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?

I like the idea of people documenting their own ideas and lives. I like the idea that you can be as much of a writer/artist/social critic as you want under your own control. I like the space zines/self-publishing puts between us and them. I apprecitate narrative i can relate to. I guess just like every grouping of people under a common interest is pretty similar. I don't like unproductive criticism and I'm not into things being well-received or more popular because the person involved, regardless of the quality of the work. Also just like most "scenes" it seems that white men are always taken more seriously, even if all they write about is complaining about women.

do zines play a political role in your life? are you involved in other d.i.y. projects? do they play a political role?

I would say I apply doses of social constructs and the political impacts that they make in my narrative. Usually the writers i like best (Sontag and Didion for instance) do the same thing. I think it's really important to point out the way that power effects the way people relate. I think there is a lot of resistance to that idea as something that's "played out" or "obvious" but i think that's just away to not confront the aspects of privilege we may see in ourselves. I would say that there is an important ethic of " d.i.y." in every project I engage myself in and most of these fall under creative outlets and have no larger social impact (bands, performance, art). But I would contend they are still very "political" to me.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?

Read a lot. Be it other zines, the newspaper, books, short stories, poetry, or autobiographies. The more I read/listen to music/watch informative documentaries rented from the library, the more i see my own stories form and mold more clearly. Don't let yourself become too limited by trends or taboos.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?

Distros are awesome. When I go on tour I bring a huge box of zines done by friends (or photocopied from my own vaults of old zines/political pamphlets). People usually get really excited about it. Plus it is so cool to roll into Minot ND with a bunch of zines about sex work and trans-history and see people open up a bunch. Mail order is the great lost art; I'm so into it.

are there changes you'd like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?

I'd like to see more people producing. I'd like to see myself become more focused with my writing which tend to be a web of my experiences tied together with quotes/themes from songs and books. I'd like to see more zines that blend the classic "narrative" style with the newly
popular idea of "art zines".

you can get emmalee's zine, "toothworm", through the distro.