how did you get involved in zines/d.i.y. publishing?
in eighth grade i would stay up listening to radio shows on my alarm clock radio, hoping to fall asleep before 3a.m. & before the days of "loveline", there was this chicago-based show called "sound opinions" on at midnight. they used to have ben weasel & courtney love on as guests, but in one episode they interviewed some fanzine author. i had no idea what a zine was, i think i had only vaguely heard about it before, but i had never ever seen it. & i didn't have the internet yet, so this radio show was my only source of information on a zine. but it intrigued me so the next day i set out to make a zine by myself. it was called "miss teen all american" & that has to be the fucking worst title ever. but it had themes of an angry young isolated white feminist. i think i had stories, fiction, reasons why i hate my dad & a newspaper clipping about a series of sexual assaults by a postal officer in my suburb. nothing too ground-breaking, but i was in eighth grade. i rode my bike to the library to use their copy machine, but i didn't know how to make it double-sided. i made two copies of each page, rode home & glued the pages together. then i had no stapler so i sewed the pages together. the zine weighed about two pounds. i gave it to my friend danielle & she kind of shrugged, but i thought i was on to something.

my family got a computer & the internet halfway through my sophomore year of high school. by that time i had already put out another "mtaa", maybe five copies at most and i'm sure tons of embarrassing stories. but the internet gave me access to riot grrrl chat groups & other zine writers. it helped me see what good zines look like, what it means when people actually respond to your writing & how to make pen pals. it made me happy & i went on to write more zines with wider distribution: "susie is a robot #1", "truckface", & "why we live."

i briefly quit making zines shortly before my sickness. but four months after my recovery i decided that i needed to write about my experience since i couldn't find anyone to relate to my desperation in the hospital & no one really understood the toll it had taken on my mental & physical state. so in the summer of 2001, i released "susie is a robot #2". i think i only made about 30 copies & sent them to the usual people, never any distros though. i wanted something more from this new zine. it was the most personal i had ever been & i kind of received lackluster responses. & then i declared that i would quit zines for real. i even stopped responding to letters or emails in hopes of just falling off the radar. but, lo and behold, two years later ciara randomly contacted me about distributing "susie." i had ten copies left & i told her i wouldn't make anymore, because i was done. but because she contacted me, i started writing again immediately. the stories of the past years poured out of me and i couldn't stop it so making new zines was the next logical step. & now i am completely involved in this process once again, with much more enthusiasm than before.

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?
well, i don't like sitting at a computer. i don't work an office job & i'd rather be holding a zine in my hand or on the el instead of searching through blogs to find out about x's day. i continue making paper zines because it is something solid. it has heart & effort. it has been thought about repeatedly & the layout has been meticulously criticized. many internet journals have quick writing looking for an immediate response. like someone just talking at you, not really thought about for weeks in order to find the right angle, the right words or sentiment. & these blogs have prevented many more zines from coming out since it's obviously easier & more people get immediate responses from their friends. but i just think the internet is cold. everyone will agree that paper letters are better than e-mails. & i feel that paper zines are just better than the internet because of that extra effort, not to mention the costs involved so it really shows the importance of its existence.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
first i have to decide what i want the zine to be about. all of my zines kind of have a compact story within them, a visible beginning & end that deals with a certain topic that's important to my life: work, illness, abuse, etc. usually the idea for the zine is spawned by a major event in my day-to-day life, or something that triggers my memory. so i begin writing in my notebook about past events & i also carry around a tiny notebook to jot down notes about current events that would apply to the zine. when i think that i have a cohesive idea put together and a solid outline, i begin to put it on to the typewriter, or if it's longer, i use the computer. i re-read the typed parts, make sure everything flows well, & when i have enough scattered pieces of writing on my tiny bedroom desk, i begin the layout process. & the layout is very important to me. i need to make sure that the zine as a whole flows well together to make sure that my point comes across & that the overarching issue is resolved. so i take the longest with the layout, oftentimes ripping pages out & moving them to a more convenient spot. when it's all put together, i read it as a whole & then ride my bike over to copy max, crossing my fingers that my machine will malfunction again & the copies will be free. thank god for teenagers who hate their jobs! they will always give you discounts with shrugged shoulders. the zinesters salute you!

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you've been involved?
i remember handwritten letters on homemade stationery. but now it's a three-line e-mail or a myspace message. there isn't a whole lot of communication these days. before i knew everybody who was reading my words, & now it's mostly anonymous & i question if anyone has even received my zine. sometimes it seems like a cut-throat business when my words are being stolen or i get crappy reviews in magazines of my first five pages because the zine is "too long." now it seems to be about profits, if one can be made. i remember more of a community, more people supporting each other, paper catalogs & paper ads for zines & distros. now it's all on the computer, & that makes it easier but very distant. the zine community has always relied on the computer to get contacts or pen pals. but now it seems as though the community is based solely on the computer, through back and forth e-mails, ordering through paypal, and livejournal. when i ordered from distros i used to have to write them a letter & trade stamps, but ordering now is like ordering anything from ebay. with this ordering process, i don't get the same amount of contact with a random stranger who appreciate zines as much as I do. but, it's not so much just a zine problem, it's just the way everything is working now. i guess zines have to be streamlined too. & before i thought that zines were all about the content but most zines these days seem to be made just to be cute. prettier zines sell more than a regular photocopied zine that's mostly text-based. & i have to compete with the glossy-covered issues and mass distribution when i just don't have the time or the funds to make my zine look attractive to "customers". now zines are being compiled into books, & i'm afraid that the books will start making the photocopied zines obsolete since the price of copies has risen over the years. not to mention with the published anthologies, fewer people are going to search after the previous issues that are still available from multiple distros. it's turning into one-stop shopping with mechanized distribution. & even at zine fairs, people are awkward and silent because we are so used to the interaction on the computer. come on! where's the party?

are you "out" to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don't understand?
umm, no, not really. my roommates know & they really don't care. i don't know if they understand that this is my outlet, this is like being in a band to me. & my best bud julie knows & she goes to quimby's to buy issues instead of just getting them from me, just because she thinks i'm famous for having my stuff in a store. but the rest of my friends may have heard that i write zines, but they really don't care. but i also do an amazing job of hiding what i do. a zine distributor visited me over the summer & i introduced her as a "pen pal" rather than zine friend, but she outed me & i had to explain my secret life to others.

so i keep my passion to myself, since i actually don't want some of my friends & acquaintances to see my zines since i am kind of a private person, though my zines would suggest otherwise. i feel like it's easier to air my secrets in zine format than discuss them face-to-face. so even when i meet people who have read my stuff, i try not to look them in the eye. yeah, i know it's weird. & then when friends find out about my zines, they'll ask me for a copy and i tell them, "no freaking way." i have a rule that friends must seek out their own copy & never discuss reading it with me. i'm just afraid it'll ruin the relationship. since one of my former co-workers read my stuff & now he seems really awkward around me, as though he didn't want to have to hear about bad things in my life.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
i make zines to have a connection, to start a dialogue with a complete stranger. so obviously i love letters & making friends over admiration for words or artwork. i love visiting zine people from other states & receiving trades in my hand. i actually can find enjoyment in zine fairs, but only when i make a fool out of myself by being incredibly outgoing & falsely confident. & it's weird how i can make such a better connection with someone out-of-state than with a local zine writer that i meet face-to-face. i hate that sort of pretentiousness where we can't even discuss that we liked a zine or attempt to be friends. & i have really very little connection to the zine writers in chicago & seemingly have more friends across the country than in my own neck of the woods, which i think is kind of sad. i have been wanting to support the chicago comic & zine community & it's been slow going, but i hope that it can get some of us out of our shells & start talking to one another for real. oh, & i fucking hate zine bullies. you know, the people who think they are too cool for your little bits of writing. i don't like the credibility that you have to gain in the zine community. or how some big distros control the market. or how the common courtesy of rejection letters or e-mails has disappeared. & another thing, there aren't enough different voices being heard. i dislike the lack of racial & class diversity within the zine-writing community. & maybe it's me, but i don't like that i feel forced to be positive with zines. sometimes i just gotta be bitter & i don't want to have to be completely judged upon one sentence or paragraph that betrays my past idealistic self. not to mention that i hate how i feel like i'm too old to be making zines and i wonder if the zine community was stronger just because we were younger. i hate that distros are closing. i used to look up to pander & i was devastated when it closed shop. & i'm scared that it'll be happening to more distros because of the inconsistent nature of zines.

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 don't really think zines play a political role in my life because they're more of a personal outlet. my politics are obviously reflected in my writing & my earlier zines had more of a political slant, but i found that it was hard to maintain enthusiasm when there's so much shit going on in the world. & i think the "personal is political" mantra has gotten tired in most cases, & seems very second-generation to me. i think in some cases the personal can be political in zines, such as writings about protests, overcoming "-isms" & other forms of abuse while providing help for others. i just don't think of it as my defining political act. my other projects are painting, button-making, linoleum prints, dancing to soul music, trying to set up zine parties in chicago, playing my guitar like a god, working for an all-volunteer independent chicago magazine, & an occasional silkscreen wheatpasting project. i am also the president & founding member of the wolfman bike gang! all of these projects fall into the time that i have outside of work, & they get neglected when i'm trying to finish a new issue. i would say that i focus most of my time on my zines & the other projects come second. & i try to make my artwork reflect my political ideals even if my prints just sit inside my apartment.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
don't get frustrated and give up. know that your first issue, no matter what, is just going to plain suck. stay in there because your zines will get better. it just takes time. also, try to get your zines in distros immediately. it makes the process much more enjoyable to know that your words aren't sitting in a box underneath your bed. you kind of just have to throw yourself out there & try not to get hung up by others who give you bad reviews or ignore you. you can learn from it & add fuel to your fire to make the next issue better. send letters to zinesters you like & ask for advice. & keep in good contact with pen pals. no one likes a rude zinester. try to find a place for yourself in the community because really that's what it's all about.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
distros have always been incredibly important to the zine community. they allow zines to be seen on a national level while giving them a proper & representative review. they essentially establish a larger community by bridging together different writers & a larger audience. distro owners should be passionate about the zines they carry & respectful of the writers. & it is always good to have the person who runs the distro be a zine writer as well, since he or she knows the ins & outs of the zine community. distros should never solely be money-making ventures. they should be places that fully respect the medium & are genuinely interested in spreading the words of others. & i think that distros shape the way we view the zine community. they shape the content that we read based on their own political perspectives, which can be either good or bad, depending on the politics. but within the process, a feeling of trust is established. i know that certain distros will carry good zines and i will continue to order from them based on the trust i have established with them. & i appreciate distros, so i wanna celebrate their birthdays with them & let them know that they rule. i sound like a freakin' kiss-ass, but it's true.

are there changes you'd like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
i'd like us all (including me) to start small again. to get back to our typewriters; to stop the glossy covers; to start writing letters; to be more honest; to ask for advice & actually receive it; to support small distros & ensure their continuation; to respect other people's work; to make paper catalogs again; to have an occasional typo; & to be receptive to making new friends.

order luran's zines! "so midwest," "susie is a robot," & "truckface".

how did you get involved in zines/d.i.y. publishing?
okay, so a lot of this is kind of fragmented in my mind, and i wish i had copies of my old zines to serve as a frame of reference for what happened when and exactly what it looked like. but i don’t have most of those zines anymore, or any of my journals from the time in my life when i was first getting involved in zines, and in a lot of ways my memory of that period of time is kind of patchy. i don’t usually think about it, so doing this interview is challenging and interesting for me to think about and piece together those years, and i keep remembering all these stories and things that i had almost forgotten, or just not thought about in a long time, stories that make me laugh out loud or give me a feeling of complete dread or make me feel like everything is new again. anyway, i am not completely sure how i first heard about zines, but i remember when i was thirteen, reading the inserts of bikini kill and heavens to betsy cds, which had pieces reprinted from their zines in them. and i remember walking to the library a few blocks away from the apartment i lived in with my mom and sister, and typing “zines” and “riot grrrl” into search engines on the computers there- when i found pieces i liked i would just print them out and glue them into my notebooks. i remember being totally inspired and excited by riot grrrl but in a bittersweet kind of way, since it seemed to be happening in places that weren’t the midwest and kind of inaccessible to me because of that. so there was this whole world that existed and i wanted to be a part of, but it was just out of reach, only it really wasn’t. and it took me a whole year to realize it was something i could do too. and i remember how much less isolated and alone i felt when, eventually, i started emailing other girls who were making zines and ordering from them, writing them letters about the things they wrote about and actually getting letters in return. the first time that i ever told anyone i was queer, it was a zine girl that i didn’t even know, i don’t even remember what zine she did or what her name was or anything. handwritten letters that eventually turned into more tangible friendships and hands that i could touch. i remember my friend who taught me how to steal photocopies since he worked at a copy shop, and how we would go there and drink the free coffee and work on our zines. and how i eventually got him fired for the amount of free photocopies and office supplies i took advantage of. i remember how one of the employees at a skateshop in the detroit suburbs submitted a bunch of really intricate drawing of skulls to my zine, i used them for the covers i think (i just remembered that now and i think it’s pretty funny.) i remember some of the first hardcore and punk shows i went to, and finding a small zine with facts about sexual assault at one of the tables. i had called myself a feminist since i learned the word, but zines not only gave me a voice, but feedback and an opportunity to apply it to my own life, a community, support when I felt very alone and isolated. discovering zines, riot grrrl and d.i.y, it was very much like a new world was opening up for me, as cliche as that probably sounds, its true. i remember riot grrrl michigan meetings in my bedroom, or in coffeehouses, bowling alleys and parking lots, staying up late with friends working on zines together, waiting anxiously by the mailbox everyday, the first time a friend from zines came to visit me from a few states away. split zines! oh man, nostalgia…

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 used to be involved with a DIY book and record which also had a zine library in detroit (it closed last august), and this one time the local weekly paper did a short article on the space. the article said something like “the shop sells radical books, records, and zines (like livejournal, but on paper!)” and i think that kind of sums a lot up! uh, all joking aside though, when i was first getting involved with zines the internet was definitely a tool for communication, but it was just that, a tool instead of a substitute for really connecting with people. i think it’s sad that internet blogs seem to be replacing zines, or seems to be the only way to even find out about zines these days. and while i am fairly embarrassed by the zines i made when i was in high school, the process of making them and the dialogue that came from them totally radicalized me in a way that wouldn’t have really happened if i was just writing on a myspace blog or whatever the kids are up to these days, i guess. i mean, maybe it would have eventually happened, but not in the same way.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
most of the writing and artwork i use in my zines comes from my journals, and then is usually modified in some way. i type most of it on my typewriter, or write it by hand, even though i’m told my handwriting is notoriously difficult to read. sometimes, i use the computer, like for my last zine nourishing ourselves with herbs during pregnancy; it started as a project for school, so most of the writing was already done on the computer, and i wanted it to be easier to read. that zine is pretty different than zines i’ve made in the past in that sense, and because the subject matter i wrote about was pretty specific. i also drew pictures of some of the herbs i wrote about in the zine which was really fun, but i usually don’t really draw things on purpose. making all the drawings was really fun!

i usually have a general idea about what i want a zine to be like before i start making it, its in my head for a few weeks or months, rereading journals and picking things i want to be in the zine, collecting little bits of letters and photographs and scraps of paper, storing them in between notebooks and in folders for more weeks and months and eventually putting it together, then taking it apart and putting together again. once a friend of mine told me “i can tell that you are about done with your zine, considering how messy your room is and the fact that you’ve changed the layout five times in the last week”. truer words have never been spoken about my zine making process!

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 how to answer this question, and i’ve been thinking about it a lot since you sent me the interview and keep getting stuck at the first sentence. nourishing ourselves with herbs during pregnancy is the first zine i’ve made in over three years and i haven’t really been too connected to the zine community as a result of that, at least not in the sense of trading zines and writing letters with people that i don’t know yet, or even as far as working with distros, the only distros that have my new zine are run by people i am friends with.

i feel like there is definitely not as much direct communication these days. i haven’t really gotten any letters or anything about my last zine that weren’t from friends of mine. this may in part be because the content is pretty specific to pregnancy and herbs, and it’s not very personal, more focused as a “how-to” zine or whatever. but i remember when you were carrying do not file under manifesto #5 and #6, how every time you asked to order more copies i was really surprised, because i had not really gotten any letters or even emails about them, and when i first made those zines, i got such an amazing response. so i don’t really know why things are different these days, it seems like. it’s something I have been thinking about. and like, do i see things differently because i have not been as involved, have things changed, or is it both?

to be honest, i feel a little intimidated doing another more personal zine with wider distribution. like, earlier today one of my friends told me about my zines getting sold on ebay, zines that i made when i was 18 and 19, and that i don’t even have any copies of myself, and probably sent to the person who sold them for free. it seems like every couple months i hear about something like that, and it’s disheartening for sure. although, i think it’s a good thing that all these conversations have been happening recently about if we are a community of zinesters, what does that actually mean, and what do we as a community think is acceptable, what are we okay with and how do we support each other and the projects we’re doing.

are you "out" to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don't understand?
most people in my life know about my zines, and i have met some of my dearest friends through making zines. since so many people in my life involved in d.i.y or punk in some way, it’s not like i exactly have to “come out” as a zinester very often. most of my housemates have read my zines and stuff, some of them even helped me with collating the last one! thanks!

as far as explaining it to people who maybe have never been exposed to zines goes, i will usually just give them a stack of zines if they are interested, zines i think that they would like based on the subject matter or if the zinester has a particular way of telling stories i think the person i am showing them to will relate to. it’s totally exciting, showing people zines when they haven’t seen them before, but i can’t remember the last time i did that.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
i like the connections that i have formed with folks because of zines, all the amazing folks i’ve become close to, my life would not be there same without these people here. the dirty hands, i love it even when i hate it, you know, when my fingers are sore from sewing what seems like a million zine covers, and screen printing ink has created a thin coat all over my bedroom floor and all my clothes seem to be stained. i love hearing other peoples stories, having a full mailbox, zines and people that provoke me to think about something in a new way, getting letters from folks i don’t even know that tell me reading my words changed their life. going to parker convenience store on cass ave. and stocking up on typewriter ribbon. the feeling when a zine is almost done (even it is “almost done” for about three years, or “almost done” like this interview has been for close to a month!)

as for things that that frustrate me about zines, see a few questions above.

do zines play a political role in your life? are you involved in other d.i.y. projects? do they play a political role?
right now i am studying midwifery, this is my main project right now, it is the reason i uprooted myself from detroit and i am here in maine now, in midwifery school, and it is pretty incredible, i am learning so much. i probably would not be where i am right now if it was not for zines, because zines were pretty instrumental in developing the way i see reproductive rights.

i feel like my zines have always played a political role in my life, even if not in a very overt kind of way, or if i necessarily understood the weight of it at the time. i think the act of telling our stories, telling the truth about our lives can be a really radical act. realizing the connections we have, breaking silence and isolation. when i was younger and first writing zines, zines and the letters i traded with other girls gave me a context for the effects on sexism, homophobia, body image issues, and sexual violence on my life, rather than feeling isolated and guilty i felt angry that so many other girls had similar experiences, and this anger fuels action. in the context of reproductive rights, breaking the silence around our bodies, our lives, the choices and paths that bring us to where we stand now. i think demystifying our bodies is a really powerful thing. and connecting with each other honestly in a culture built on disconnection, that requires disconnection to survive it’s effects. and of course zines (and art in general) can remind us of the things that are beautiful and inspiring, the things that make us feel whole, the glimpses of the world we wish to create, the things that remind us of why we are fighting in the first place.

other than midwifery school, i’m not involved in too much here in portland, because studying and working seems to take up most of my time and i sometimes tend to overextend myself and take on way too many projects at once. myself and a couple friends have been talking about starting a mental health collective, but this idea has not totally materialized so far.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
i would say not too worry if your zine sucks at first because every zine sucks at first, and then you figure it out, and your zines get better. write lots of letters, remember the saying to get a letter, write a letter? (i need to take this advice myself!) and don’t get too bummed out if people don’t respond right away, zinesters can be really flaky. if you want to send out your zine for review, bear in mind that maximum rock and roll WILL give you a bad review! when i was 15 i send them one of my zines for review and they said that it was “hilarious to still be seeing riot grrrl zines in 1999”, oh and they questioned my stapling ability. try not to take that shit personally and get your zine out there. i got so many orders from that bad review!

also, are there copies of the zine etiquette guide around still? because i think everyone should read it.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
i think the role of distros should be nurture the zine community, expose people to zines they might not have otherwise picked up, make zines more accessible, and support zinesters in getting their work out. is this the role that distros actually play? well, sometimes. i think that your distro does, and some other distros too, and distros like that are great resources for folks that are just getting involved in zines, zine makers, and people that have been reading zines for a long time.

are there changes you'd like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
as far as my own zine creation goes, i would like to finally finish the zine that has been brewing in my head for a couple years now at least, and become better at keeping in touch with people, and actually writing letters to people when i read their zines. finish the new zine mostly though.

communication is (still) everything: i’m moving in may, but you can email me to get my current address--nellycane@riseup.net or order my newest zine, "i still believe (in fire)" #1.

how did you get involved in zines/d.i.y. publishing?
There were these older dudes, juniors and seniors in high school when I got there in 1992, who were these weird, funny culturejammer dudes, converse wearing scraggly-haired dudes, who put out a couple issues of an underground "newspaper" they called "the red herring". It was really, really dumb but it was a beautiful thing, very exciting. The possibilities were really exciting. It seemed like an important thing they were doing. After they graduated, me and my friends tried to put out some issues, maybe we did like three in two years and everyone always hated them so much. Before we took it over, some kids put out an issue where they totally took the piss out of this one cheerleader. Her mom was a lawyer and she threatened to sue the school and sue the kids for slander or something and I guess those kids got in some trouble. But our issues were just weird collages and rants and stuff. We tried to be insightful and funny but we could never really get it together and everyone hated it and thought it was stupid.

I really liked making those zines though, I thought the whole process of writing and doing layout and making photocopies and distributing it was totally mind-blowing-ly great. It all felt very subversive and meaningful.

It took me a really long time, like until 2002 (ten years after I "got into zines") before I ever put out anything that I liked even kind of as a finished thing. I think that was "Day of Reckoning" #4.I have kept at it because I really liked the idea of zines and I get a lot out of making them. The act of constructing something and publishing it and putting it out there is still kind of scary and exciting. It's even better now that I don't think that everything I have ever published is totally stupid and trivial, because that is how I felt for a long time.

But there was always been so much great stuff around to keep me inspired and make me keep trying..

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 don't think the internet is worth too much really as far as zines are concerned. It makes communication easier, it makes it easier to figure out what is going on. It's a glorified phone book.

I mean, no. It's better than that.

I like wikipedia and common dreams and things. I like blogs and indymedia and the whole horizontal expansion of "the media". I think all that is all really awesome. I think that the explosion of zine culture in the 90's was a harbinger of that.

Obviously having all of the other options, to do blogs or whatever, to communicate with people through listservs and sell and trade things on line has had an effect on the world o' zines.

But I think that zines are going to exist and thrive because it's awesome to create a unified work of art. It is hard to write a book. One thing is that it is good to have some line of demarcation where a finished thing is finished. You have created something that represents some part of you and what you are thinking about and how you are feeling at a certain time, and you put it together and distribute it and some folks read it and that's it. The internet is great in how it is free-flowing and there is tons of stuff, but it is nice to have something just be there and be done and not have it be syndicated or linked to or commented on in the comments field.

Also with the internet everything is right there forever unless someone completely removes it. It's always in the same place and there is essentially one way to access it, sitting down at a computer and looking at it. But with a zine, to have it be a physical thing means that someone can pick up off of someone's living room table or forget about and find years later in a box or something.

One effect the internet is having is it means zines are not the most convenient, effective way to get information out. I think that maybe they were more important for that in the 80's and 90's, before the internet boom. And it might change again if the internet becomes more regulated and folks have to start paying for bandwidth or some other weird thing happens.

Regardless, I think that there are possibilities that zines medium offer that the internet cannot replace.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
Lots of notes and versions, retyping/writing things to get new versions from interacting with the words again. Lots of starting to write things and getting sick of them, lots of abandoning bad ideas.

Layout: lots of wrestling with margins.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you've been involved?
I guess I have not really participated in the zine community too much over the years, I have never had the attention span, I guess, to trade a lot and get my stuff out there and write lots of letters to lots of people and stuff. I guess I feel a little more involved in some sort of community that has something to do with zines right now because I am hanging out at the zine library a fair amount, and doing this interview and doing some work on "Zine World". But up until recently the "zine community" was something I was vaguely aware and only really halfheartedly participated in.

As far as zine culture goes, there is the thing with zines becoming large and famous more. That's okay. I think it is great that there is a fringe of the zine community. I like that there is a nebulous center and an outside. I am equally likely to stumble into poorly-distributed fringe stuff that I really like as find something I am psyched about in the distro market. And I think it's great to stumble on those treasures on dusty infoshop zine racks and I think it is great to be able to track down good zines with ease via distros and such. I think that there is a pretty okay balance between those two things right now. I think it is great that the lines are so fluid between those two things. Sometimes I get nervous that the lines will harden more and it will be impossible for folks to get their stuff out there unless they can smash their way into "the community". But then I start thinking about what is "the community"? It's totally fluid thing, right? Is everyone who writes a zine in the community? Everyone who reads a zine? How long do you have to go without reading, writing, thinking or talking about zines before you are not in "the community" anymore? Everyone has a different "community" that they participate in, really, a unique network. All of those networks are constantly changing, growing, shrinking, twisting around…

The community…the community is great how it offers a lot of resources as far as promotion, distribution, camaraderie, and a lot of other things are concerned. And it will grow and change, but I think the great thing about zines is that you can just go ahead and make them, give them out to your friends and hand them out on the street corner. As long as the basic resources of cheap copies and a stapler are available, you can do that. The community is a nice byproduct of a bunch of cranks deciding they want to do that and no matter how fancy and sophisticated it gets that is all it will ever be.

are you "out" to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don't understand?
Oh, no one understands, you know?

I don't really care about people being indifferent to or not understanding or not knowing what I am doing. I will tell someone I do a zine if it comes up and then I am fine with not talk about it to them if they don't seem to engage with the concept. That's fine with me. We can talk about something else, I am not going to try to explain the whole thing from the beginning to someone who it's obvious doesn't really believe me.

I gave a copy of my zine to an editor I was doing freelance work for and I never heard from her again. That was a little disappointing. I mean, I don't think it was because of the zine, probably she just doesn't have work for me. I got the sense that she was the type of person who would be interested in what I was doing, would probably understand it and like it, even if she doesn't know too much about zines and stuff. I really hope that she liked it.

(Note: Hey, she actually just e-mailed offering me a story, but I got the message too late, damn!)

I mean, I am just trying to create a little piece of art or whatever that I think some folks might like okay. I am interested in trying to make it available to those folks. I am not concerned about the whole world or the whole counter-culture or the whole zine community or my whole band or my whole house knowing I do a zine.

If asked, I would never deny that I do a zine.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
Least: It bums me out to hear about people exploiting zinesters and ripping them off and doing what they are doing according to some sleazy business model. It bums me out sometimes when stuff gets glossy and starts looking like a magazine, when someone starts paying to much for production and then passes the cost on to the customer. It's like, what the hell? I can buy your $5 "zine" or I can buy these three other things that all look pretty awesome and unique.

Those guys are total ball hogs. Fuck them.

Best: I like zines best about the zine world. I really like how a good zinester can convey thoughts, experiences and feeling in way that can really make the reader feel them, relate to them on an empathic level. I especially like that when the empathy is really farfetched. I have read death metal zines that have made me think for a minute that I dug that music. I have learned a lot about the different ways folks experience gender and sexuality and music and work and culture and a whole host of things from reading zines and those lessons have some been life-changing and many fascinating.

I think that part of the reason zines as a medium, are such a great means for inspiring pretty deep understanding is that the medium is so accessible. If it feels a lot like you could have made the book, it feels a little more like you could have written the words and had the thoughts and experiences. That is another reason that the glossy and fancy zines kind of aggravate me.

Also: I got a zine out from the zine library called "The Answering Machine Project", and it is poems that the zinester's friends left on his answering machine. I guess he set up his machine message so it asked callers for impromptu poems based on various themes like laundry or vegetables. I think this is an okay idea, that makes for what, in any other context, would be really annoying poetry. I think it makes a great zine though. I love it how zines totally lend themselves to the question, "What can I try next?"

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 think that zines are political in the same ways that anything is: the free flow of ideas is a political issue. Access to resources to facilitate self-expression is political. It is a political decision to decide to be open to zines, I think, to decide to respect the form and all the effort folks make. Further, I think I have learned a lot from zines that has shaped my political perspective.

Also, any d.i.y project is political, I reckon, trying to eke something out, build something that is different from sucky and alienating and exploitative and hierarchical.

But, at the same time I really have a problem with looking at d.i.y projects as "political" per se. I choose d.i.y because I think it is fun and more meaningful and fulfilling than consumer culture or whatever. I think that it opens up more and more interesting possibilities for self-expression.

But it is not the way to the eight-hour day. It's not universal health care.

What I am trying to say is that things do not play "a political role" in an individual's life. Politics is about how societies make decisions about how they are going to function. It is also about societies reacting to the effects of those decisions and re-negotiating the terms pretty continuously. But those decisions play a role in everyone's life. Individuals don't get to pick and choose what things play a political role in their lives.

I think that zines and d.i.y culture do play a political role in our society. I think it is a small one right now but I think that there are important lessons that people are learning from d.i.y culture will probably be increasingly useful in the process of re-negotiating how society works in the future.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
Careful with those margins. Rock it.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
Distributing zines. By that I mean providing exposure and easy access to many awesome things. Also I think they should play a role where they aren't sleazy or unfair to people.

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

David--"Big Swirl Fanzine #1" out now!!! Lots of stuff!

#2 Out in July--interviews, interviews: Richard Stallman, (on being the founder of Free Software Movement and inventing Copyleft and just generally being a free speech curmudgeon), Ciara Xyerra (on being a zine distro curmudgeon and maybe some other stuff), Ciara's mom (on being a high speed internet live chat investigator of contemporary culture in the middle east from her home in Bowling Green OH)

Very exciting and dramatic!

My band is Stick and Rag Village Orchestra.

check out david's zine, day of reckoning #6, through the distro.

how did you get involved in zines/d.i.y. publishing?
I started doing zines a couple of years ago while i was living in this shed in Greensboro for the summer. It was hot and moldy, and I didn't have any friends, so I thought, "Hey, things aren't going so well. I guess I'll make a zine". That was the beginning of a tradition of putting zines together when I'm not so happy. Hopefully those first couple of one-shots will be lost in the sands of time. This year I started doing the "Big Hands" series, which is, like the Crass song, about appropriation.

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?
Zines are an obsolete medium. Wikipedia says, "The classic era for fanzines ended in 1996". But it is something that is nostalgic and retains its allure and charm for a certain segment, just like typewriters, laserdiscs and record players. Pamphlets of writing have a pretty illustrious history. Copy art is still as of yet a virginal, unexplored, underappreciated medium. A perfect response to a commodity culture: infinitely reproduceable, disposable art. The combination of the two parts and creative control over an infinite number of a palpable art object that you can give away makes a zine interesting. I think the widespread use of blogs has decreased the number of zines being made; but it has made zines, and their content more valuable. I think blogs are great, but blog writing is a more immediate form of communication where people are more apt to write their daily schedule or how they're feeling rather than their ideas. Zines allow a writer more space to grminate a more fully formed idea. And since the medium is more personal, the eader might absorb the ideas more fully.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
I just write stuff and then type it up. I don't write every day, mostly ust when I'm upset or want to work out in words something I can't understand. I work my ass off under self-imposed deadlines. I've made three zines this year, I'm half done with a fourth that should be out in the fall. After I type it up, I reread it alot of times under different mental states: caffinated, exhausted, drunk, depressed, feeling brilliant, feeling like shit, etc... and see how it holds up.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you've been involved?
I didn't care about the zine community before i started writing zines. I went to the Zine Symposium out in Portland in 2002 and helped some iniebriated North Carolinians layout a "zine" that was just cut and paste letters saying: "Stop writing zines. It wastes paper". I guess i feel pretty dumb about that now, being a devout paper-waster. A case of being outcast among the outcasts, I suppose. At the time I was reading zines but wasn't participating, and from my perspective it just looked like a big popularity ontest. A networking event with obvious celebrities and lots of backpatting.

are you "out" to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don't understand?
Most of my friends know I write a zine. I think the concept of a "magazine" is something that's pretty easy to describe, I think what most people don't understand is the subculture behind it. Thanks to the early 90's boom that broke punk, a lot of people in their late twenties and up know what a "zine" is. My mom knew what a zine was long before I ever told her.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
I like the zine format. I like the ease with which you can meet the people whose writing you like, and keep up a correspondence with them. I dislike the careerism and upward mobility.

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 think a lot of zines are either radical or subcultural. I use my zine as a blackboard to work out my political or social ideas, which at this point are fairly bleak. But it's interesting to go from cynicism to hope, rather than the typical descent the other way around.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
I'm new to the zine community. I've written some things in the past, but I've just started to focus on writing and crank them out this past year. It is 2006. If you start writing a zine now you will not be cared about by people younger than you, who grew up using blogs, and you will be brushed aside as trifling by an older generation who have seen the end of the "classic era" of fanzines and are jaded from 10+ years of looking at the same old shit. "Heartattack", one of the surviving bastions of DIY punk from the 90's, just published their last issue ever. It's a time of transition and I think the DIY community could use some new outlets of creative expression. The other surviving "punk" magazines seem to be heading in different directions, like focusing on only heavy music, or getting more mainstream (see: Cannibal Corpse interviewed in "Punk Planet"). My advice would be not to play the game. The best zines to me seem like they have been written in isolation; ie. the people that wrote them did not spend their time at zine symposiums. They were holed away working on their creative endeavours.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
I think small-scale distros are really great. I am not excited about the Wal-mart/Amazon.com model of zine distros that are popping up. The online stores where you can get all your favorite zines or anthologies at the click of a button. I'm also suspicious of zines getting "published" by someone else. I don't begrudge anyone who writes a zine for doing this, as it sounds like a pretty sweet deal and a way to get some quick money from a medium that has never been lucrative (except for the other Aaron, who I'm sure has stacks of dollar bills hidden under his couch mailed to him as concealed cash from sixteen year olds in Missouri). But, I think having a zine megastore misses the point because they have traditionally had a very personal medium of distribution.

are there changes you'd like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
I'm always to some degree dissatisfied with what I do, which is why I make something else that I think will be better. Sure, I hope the zine community changes, evolves, and grows. I hope to keep doing zines, which means I hope I don't get too satisfied with what I'm doing.

Aaron Smith--Big Hands

shakinghell@gmail.com

1104 Imperial Rd.

Cary NC 27511

thanks in part to "sassy" & in part to my parents' hip friends, i found out about bands like bikini kill & babes in toyland. my family lived in rural isolation in northwest ohio, but my interest in these bands led to some pen pal relationships, & some of those pen pals were already writing zines. i started contributing to their publications (this was back in the day when that was totally standard, even for personal zines) & eventually i started my own zine in 1993 or 1994. i was really locked into the riot grrrl thing for the first few years, but eventually that dissipated & became more of a trend of personal zine-writing encompassing punks, travelers, anarchists…& here i am, almost sixteen years later, still at it.

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?
as i mentioned previously, i spent my formative years living three miles outside a tiny rural village in northwest ohio. it was a common occurrence for the electricity to go out; we didn't have access to the internet. i didn't have an e-mail address until 1998, when i started college. computers never held any appeal for me. i wouldn't even have a computer now if i wasn't running a zine distro, which in this day & age, necessitates a certain degree of technological savvy.

the internet has had a significant impact on the world of paper zines. i know people who were paper zine stalwarts, but now they confine their writings to the internet because it's just easier for them-no postage costs, no trips to the copy shop, no worries about stacks of mail taking over the apartment. writing on the internet offers the benefit of instant gratification, & sometimes it's easier to keep in touch with readers & friends through e-mail & blogs. but i find it all to be so impersonal, something of a necessary evil. as slow as i am with paper mail, as tedious as it is standing in line at the post office, it feels more meaningful to me, like i am maintaining a dying art form.

the internet makes it easier for people to learn about zines. there are messageboards, e-mail lists, resource websites, online distros, people are even talking about setting up online archives. the internet offers a simple way to consolidate a lot of disparate information & then it's available to anyone in the world with an internet connection. but it has a lot of toxic side effects: i get a lot less feedback on my zines than i did in the mid 90's. back then, i was pen pals with everyone who read my zine. now people i don't know paypal me $2 & i never hear from them again. people cobble zines together out of the writing on their blogs, & i maintain that most blog writing is not zine material by any stretch of the imagination. people who grew up with the internet have come to expect the same instantaneous transaction access from paper zines & mail as they do from the internet, which is unreasonable. i see zines being reduced a disposable commodity & i think the internet has a lot to do with it. i see the internet as a tool that needs to be used responsibly.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
slow. arduous. ridiculously arcane. i initially write everything on a word file on my computer. it's usually all brand-new writing no one has ever seen before, but sometimes i lift things from letters, e-mails, other places. i piece it together bit by bit, constructing really slowly, editing, cutting down, expanding. one of the best pieces of writing advice i ever received was, "write it all down, everything. & then pare it back to the barest necessities you need to tell the story." so i try to do that. i keep going until i have twenty or twenty-five pages, including intros, outros, book reviews, everything i want to include. then i start recruiting people to look it over. i have a few friends that know my style & have been reading my stuff for years, & i trust them to tell me if something is just not working. i explain what i am going for with each piece & give them some direction regarding certain passages i am concerned about. yhey look it over & get back to me with suggestions-things to change, things to cut, things to re-write, things that work. i start making the changes, which also goes slowly. when i finally have a draft i am happy with, i start with the layout. i am also constantly messing with the order of these pieces. i don't just throw shit willy-nilly into my zine wherever i have a blank page. the order of the writing is not necessarily chronological & it's not necessary to read it cover-to-cover, but i do design it to have a certain emotional impact.

so then i start with the layout. i do everything by hand. i have a typewriter i got from a pawn shop in corpus christi. i use that & my own handwriting. i'm not much of an artist, but i draw a few things, borders & titles, little comics. the layout is a long process because it's just me, a pair of scissors, a jar or rubber cement, maybe some alphabet stencils…i don't see pre-fabricated clip art, nothing from computers at all. i have seen plenty of zines i enjoyed that have a clean computer layout, but it's not at all what i want for my own projects, & it's not what i prefer if left to my own devices. i really enjoy the process of making a flat, taking it to the copy shop, collating…using a computer would make the process too fast & less personal. i edit as i lay out the writing, making everything fit within the spatial boundaries of the paper. sometimes i have to cut stuff, sometimes i have to add stuff. i don't suffer white space, but i won't fill it with random bullshit either. if i am only averaging one zine a year, why let any of it be imperfect?

& once that's all done, off to the copy shop for a test copy. if margins have to be adjusted, if the masters have to be shrunk, i do that. then i start making copies. i always try to do something special with the cover. the last issue was a blockprint. so i'm thinking about what the cover will be like the whole time i'm working on a zine. i like to use color on the cover colored paper, rubber stamps, something to make it stand out. i just staple as binding because it's the most reliable. & that's that.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you've been involved?
computers are much more widely-available now, so obviously computer layouts are pretty standard in the zine world now. it's even pretty common for people to make zines using fancy word processing programs with columns & grayscale & stuff. in the early 90's, the zines i was reading were written by teenage girls in their bedrooms, crayola markers & elmer's glue. it was more about catharsis & connection than anything slick & well-produced from a professional graphic design standpoint.

& the availability of computers has brought the internet into the picture more, as previously discussed. people have more online relationships, rather than waiting by their mailboxes with handfuls of letters to be mailed. i think the internet has also served to make the divergent communities of zinesters writing about their own personal niche interests more aware of each other, so there's more overlap & common ground among people working in different "genres," so to speak.

on a strictly personal level, i'm older now. i'm 27 years old & i live in the middle of boston, a major urban metropolis. i'm not some 13-year-old kid in oak harbor, ohio anymore. i've traveled all over the country, i've organized zine conferences, i've met tons of my zine friends, i've lived with them, i've dated them. the concept of a "zine community" is no longer an abstraction. i live it, & i also see in concrete terms the way the zine community overlaps with other communities: punks, anarchists, & travelers are what i see because those are the categories i happily participate in. i move into new houses in new cities & a new roommate says, "you wrote this zine I read in 1999, i picked it up off the kitchen table of a punk house i was crashing at during an earth first! gathering & now we live together. let's start a radical feminist bookstore!" i mean, that really happened. & it was not an isolated incident. so as disgusted as i sometimes get with the more abstracted internet zine community, i know it's a wide world out there & every punk house bathroom hides a stash of zines under the sink, everyone who has swung through an anarchist skillshare has thumbed through some zine or another, this community is real & it's a lot more diverse & uncontainable than even i can probably imagine.

are you "out" to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don't understand?
i kind of have to be "out" because i don't have a job & people love to ask new people they meet, "so, what do you do?" so i say, "zines." at this point, it's uncommon for me to stumble across someone who doesn't know what a zine is. i live in a punk house with a bunch of anarchists, i'm the zine buyer at the local radical infoshop, i spent the winter working twenty hours a week at the local zine library, my social life sort of revolves around these d.i.y. savvy, creative, radical fringe communities. & zines are assuming their mantle in the consciousnesses of a lot of people that might not have known what they were 20 years ago. bookstores carry them, "utne reader" profiles them, they're not really a secret. it's more of a challenge to try to explain to people the breadth of the culture that surrounds the medium, a culture that i have sort of built my life around, but whatever. they probably don't need the details anyway.

when i worked at the library, we did get a lot of people who came in, wondering what a zine was. the fastest answer was, "take something off the shelf; that's a zine." or i would say, "it's something like a self-published magazine." because so many of my on-going projects involve zines, i almost always have one with me, so i can whip it out as an illustration. it's not hard for me at all, & a lot of people have come to know me as "ciara--that girl who does zines." like we're synonymous.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
i'll answer the snarky part first: what do i like least? i am hating the way that zines are treated as disposable commodities, like i said before. people order a zine, they read it, & that's it. i have gotten some fucking amazing feedback, sometimes from perfect strangers, sparked new friendships, & that sort of makes up for the more typical scenario of never hearing from someone ever again, but still. & somehow this has become acceptable. i remember staying up all night after work in 1996 crafting these ridiculously detailed letters to send to people if i had some sort of quibble with something they wrote in a zine. it was like dialogue happened, & now…not so much. sometimes. but not enough. & i hate the fact that i am not so different. because of the quantity of zines i read these days, i am a lot more likely to just stop reading a zine that i dislike than i am to actually try to engage the author in a conversation about it.

i dislike that so much of the exchange about zine information happens strictly online. i hate sitting in front of the computer. i hate that i have to google my own name to find some obscure blog i've never heard of before to find out that someone has taken umbrage with something i wrote, or that my zine changed someone's life somehow. talk to me about it, people! i actually want to hear this shit!

i dislike that hierarchies still exist, a cult of personality lives on in which some zines rise to the top more because the person who wrote them is popular or charming or ingratiating than because the zine is actually good. i hate that social politics play into zines in such weird ways-people are afraid to offend certain people because maybe they are influential. maybe they run a distro or write reviews & you don't want to give them a reason to dismiss your project.

but obviously i love a lot of things about zines because i have been doing this shit for almost the entire lives of high school juniors. it's always an amazing surprise to check the mail & find a zine that makes me want to put a record on & stay home that night to read & write some letters & work on my own projects. i love the fact that it's actually possible to build friendships on a foundation of having met through zines. i love that i have a network of people across north america with whom i can crash, based on our zine relationships. i love that i still get mix tapes in the mail. i love that i can give random houseguests from other countries my zines & they can take them on their travels & remember the people they met in boston that way. i love the times when i do get a dialogue going through a zine. Ii love the process of putting a zine together, the writing & editing & pissing off the neighbors with my loud typewriter. i love the fact that i am meeting some of the most incredible writers & thinkers of my generation because they are making zines.

do zines play a political role in your life? are you involved in other d.i.y. projects? do they play a political role?
well, i think d.i.y. is inherently political, or i have made it political for myself. as i said before, i got into zines at a tender age through riot grrrl, & riot grrrl was the manifestation of my feminism, which has grown to encompass anarchism. zines have always formed some sort of platform for me as i developed my anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist political views. i read zines that pointed me in the direction of books, such forth & so on, like the domino theory. & i can use zines to work out my political ideas & share them with other people.

the projects i am currently involved in include running this distro, organizing the boston skillshare on an annual basis, working at the lucy parsons center. all of these things are grounded in a political understanding. i do them all on a volunteer basis. the skillshare & the l.p.c. are collectives. i have been involved in other projects, radical feminist art collectives, female reproductive health collectives learning how to perform abortions, radical cheerleading…all of these things are political to me & they all involve some form of d.i.y. understanding. even just in my house, i try to steer us away from something simple like having a chore wheel with the hopes that we can all live together & be responsible for ourselves & to each other as a sort of embodiment of mutual aid. maybe that sounds sort of cheesy & ridiculous, but i kind of try to make all of my decisions while looking at the bottom line & how they reflect my anarchist principles.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
your first few zines will suck & there's nothing you can do about it. try to remember that editing is your friend. you are committing words & images to paper & making copies & potentially giving them to strangers. try not to put anything on paper that you are ambivalent about, quality-wise. watch your margins. white space kills tiny baby kittens. ask yourself why you want to make a zine. find your own voice & use it. DO NOT PUBLISH POETRY, i don't care who told you it was good. be prepared to lose money, forever. write letters! ask yourself what you are doing that is original & new, even if it's just telling your own unique story. don't try to follow anyone else's template. read as many zines as you can get your hands on-go to zine libraries, order from distros, trade with anyone who will trade with you. the more zines you read, the more you will come to understand what attracts you & what doesn't, & that will inform your own zine-making process. the writing you do on your blog is not the writing you want to publish in your zine, unless you are writing some sort of amazingly informative & engaging blog (unlikely). remember that the zine you are making is still going to be in new people's hands in a year; do you really want to make a zine about going to d.c. with your mom in excruciating detail or recount every confounding moment of your break-up with your boyfriend? the answer is no. look at your favorite zine & try to imagine how much effort went into it. put that much effort into your zine. fill orders in a timely manner. include all information requested when you send it out for distro consideration. things like "out-of-context quotes" & inside jokes are only going to be funny to the people who were there; limit your distribution to those people or don't publish that shit. be patient & keep at it. do not even think about starting a distro until you've been doing this zine shit for at least a couple of years.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
it's a little bit ironic that i run a distro now because i used to be wary of them. i never sent my zines out to distros, i didn't order from distros. i didn't see the point. i thought they were middle-men. i perceived of zines as an exchange between the creator & the reader & a distro just got in the way of that. but eventually, in 1999, i read descriptions for zines i was curious about on a distro site & the author was impossible to get a hold of, so i just ordered from the distro. i was on hiatus from making zines myself then, but when i started again, i worked with distros. they carried my shit & got it into the hands of people that i probably never could have reached on my own. & a few years ago, i found myself having trouble finding a lot of the zines, or sorts of zines, i wanted to read, i perceived of a lack in the distribution process, so i started my own distro.

my goal is to support zinesters. zinesters can come to me & if i like their shit--boom, a guaranteed twenty copies sold that will end up in someone's hands. distros can really take the burden off a zinester who gets burnt out dealing with all those envelopes full of dollar-bills & notes that say, "send zine here." i make 750 copies of my zine, which is a lot for me to distro all on my own, so it's helpful to have someone dealing with twenty copies here, fifty copies there. i think distros can also raise a zine's profile. sometimes you don't even know there's a new issue of your favorite zine out there until you stumble across the listing on a distro site.

i also table my distro a lot, mostly at events around boston, but I have traveled far afield before as well. & sometimes those events are someone's first exposure to zines, so a zine i carry might be the first zine they ever pick up. that's exciting.

things distros should not do: be in it for the money. think they own someone's zine. think they are doing someone a great big huge favor by carrying their zine. exist solely to get free zines. go on hiatus & then disappear forever with a closet full of other people's zines.

i am not into this move toward publishing zines. note my off-the-cuff definition of a zine: "self-published magazine." self-published. i think it's important to note that few distros make money. most lose money, or maybe break even. my distro makes enough money to keep me in office supplies & web hosting. i don't have a business model. i maintain a budget, i track every penny, but i am not interested in opening a store or going in a direction that will put me more in communication with the forces of capitalism than is absolutely necessary. i have personal relationship with just about everyone i carry. i have met & hung out with almost all of them. i've cried in front of these people, i've thrown up in front of them, some of them have met my parents. this is not a mercenary relationship. i know maybe this is just me & i quite possibly don't know anyone who is as intimately involved with the zine community on a personal level as myself, but there you go. that's why i get protective. that's why i have these grand ideals.

are there changes you'd like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
well, i wish i could make my zines a little bit faster, be a little less pain-staking. or at least display some modicum of discipline toward my craft, so i was working hard a little bit every day & making more zines more often. i'd like to see people speak up more when they have an issue, a criticism, whatever. i wish that public discourse on zines would move beyond this "how to for beginners" stage & start getting a little more analytical & crusty. i don't need another book telling me how to measure for margins. i don't need a documentary full of people telling me about their favorite zines. i want to see people talking about the realities, like how some zinesters are sexual assaulters, some zinesters are capitalist assholes, zine fairs are sometimes nothing but mutual masturbation affairs, attempting to maintain anti capitalist d.i.y. ethics in this community is a fucking challenge & people could use some support trying to do it…i'd like to see people get together to publish their zines together to cut down on costs, travel around & sell their friends' zines at stores to break down the monopoly of big wholesale distribution. little collective efforts like that would be a breath of fresh air & create more spaces for new zinesters to shine. i want to see zine tours & zine readings & people trading zines at breakfast potlucks. i want to see zines shared around like music is shared. i don't want to hear anyone else say, "i thought about making a zine…but i didn't."

xo, ciara xyerra

i run this here zine distro, learning to leave a paper trail, & have been doing so for four years. i carry almost 150 zines. i also write "you live for the fight when that's all that you've got", "up the logic punks!", & "love letters to monsters" zines.

write me at: 12 lincoln ave. #3
somerville ma 02145
or e-mail: theciaramonster@riseup.net

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 make paper zines because they feel more personal. when i read zines i like to take them with me for a couple days, running errands, or taking walks, or hanging out in the park. i like to think that my zines are hanging out in back pockets or at the bottoms of messy back packs, or tucked away in books--waiting to be read like personal letters.

the internet seems to be degrading everything that was once sincere. people send emails instead of letters, know the weather a week before it rains, & flea markets suck because of ebay. however, it is pretty nice to have zines so accessible through distro & personal websites.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
it's a long tedious process. first i write a basic idea of what i want the zine to include--pretty much anything that goes through my head about whatever topic or story. i type it up on the computer then print out a draft. then i work it to death--change anything that needs changing, expand on important things, add details. then when i can't possibly do anything else with that draft i take everything that was changed on paper & change it on the computer version...then i print out another draft & do the same thing. i do this until i can print a draft &n ot want to change a single thing. THEN i email the draft that i am completely satisflied with to a list of friends who have agreed to read it & pick it apart in exchange for a future zine or cookies. i get the feedback & either change things or keep it the same. THEN when i am totally satisfied with the writing i type the entire thing on a real typewriter. my layout is really basic, mostly just text...so i spend some time getting it copy-ready..then make a cover...& usually finish up last minute details at the copy shop.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you've been involved?
it's hard to tell how the zine community as a whole has changed because i have lived in so many different places since i have been involved in zines, & each place has had a drastically different take on zines.

as for process, i have been seeing many more zines with really nice clean layouts. it seems like a lot of zinesters are taking themselves more seriously, which is great!

are you "out" to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don't understand?
i'm open to anyone knowing that i write zines, but i am pretty picky about which family members actually get to read them. i used to be excited about explaining to people what zines are, hoping that they would touch other people the way they have touched me. but, i have become very tired of it, & i try to avoid that conversation at all costs these days.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
my complaint about the zine world is that it often feels very clique-y. & because of that [& because of my tendency to be somewhat anti-social] i sometimes feel outcasted in it, even though i have been writing zines for a really long time.

the best part, though, is reading a zine that i have never read before, written by someone i have never met, & feeling SO CONNECTED to them through their words. & actually being able to write to them & establish a friendship from it.

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 think zines play a political role in my life in the way that the personal can be very political. my zines & the zines i love most are based around stuff like trauma, healing, learning to communicate in a healthy way, self exploration/growth & living in a way that's sustainable--which is all so interwoven in everything political.

my other d.i.y. projects [existing and/or in the developing process] include being involved in an artists' collective; i'm writing a book; slowly trying to start up a Free Child Care Collective; organizing skillshares; etc etc.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community
take your time. with zines, quality is so much more important than quantity. read a lot of zines to get inspired but try to come up with your own ideas & a way to really make your zine your own. & if you have questions there are a million resources & zinesters willing to help you out.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
i have no expectations from zine distros beyond the basics of making zines more accessible [for both the zine reader & the zine writer].

are there changes you'd like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
i just want to see more people getting excited about zines. i'd love to see more people writing zines & actively searching for zines. as for my own zine, i hope it is always changing & growing to represent the way that i am always changing & growing.

i'd love to talk to people about so many other things related to & not related to zines. let's be pen pals. let's trade letters & art & secrets & stories & mix tapes. damn, let's just be friends.

andee grrr
p.o. box 1824
brattleboro, vt 05302.

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?
To me, internet-based publishing seems temporary compared to paper zines. A zine is not "livejournal on paper" as described by the Metro Times here in Detroit. Once you make a zine and start giving it to people, it can't be changed. You can change future copies, but the copies you gave out may be in circulation for a long time. For this reason I think people need to be more judicious about what they write in their zines as compared to what they might write in an internet journal or on a blog.

The internet has also centralized the zine community. I realized this when Shaun and I opened Stranger Danger. We wanted to do our distro in the way those in the past had--the whole "go to shows, sell zines, have a catalogue, sell zines through the mail" way. That is what we did at first and we didn't get any orders. Zinesters are really reliant on the internet to distribute their zines now.

I guess I would compare my continued paper zine efforts to this problem I have with double spaces when typing on a computer. I learned how to type on a typewriter and when using a typewriter you are supposed to space twice after the end of a sentence. Word processing programs do this for you, so you don't need to double space after a period. Unfortunately I am in the habit of spacing twice and continue to do this. Most people who learned how to type on a computer don't notice, but it drives the other people who learned to type on typewriters crazy. They immediately notice and want me to change. I can't! That is how zines in the internet age is for me. I will continue to make zines for as long as I want because, while I do use the internet, I am not as into the technology as people who have always had it around.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
I get distracted easily so ideally most of the writing, editing, and laying out should be done at the same time. I like to knock out a whole zine in a week or so. I find it takes me more time getting motivated to start a zine than to finish one. This is one of the reasons it is bad for me to take more than a day or so break when making a zine. I have done a lot of split zines recently and in part because having someone else working on a zine with me, even if not physically, helps motivate me.

Lately I use a lot of stuff that was written beforehand, sometimes for other sources and sometimes with a zine in mind. I can't really sit down and write things with a zine in mind when I am already starting do the layout. In the past my zine lacked editing and frequently had an unreadable layout. Words would flow off the side of the page, the layouts were really distracting and I wouldn't copy edit. I have been trying to use simpler layouts and strict, clean margins. For the majority of my recent zines I have used a computer for word processing. Typewritten zines look sweet, but whenever I use a typewriter my zine is illegible.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you've been involved?
DIY culture has really changed a lot in the past ten years. The line between "underground" and mainstream is a lot more permeable. Mainstream culture is using DIY aesthetic to appeal to young consumers. The "underground" culture that fostered zines is starting to adopt more mainstream and traditional methods and tactics. I see this affecting the way zines are made, published, and distributed. I got into zines around the time when some of the publishers of more well-known zines were getting book deals, and not just from independent publishers. I see people branching out from zines more now than in the past.

The internet has had a huge affect on zines. It's a really centralizing force, which can be both bad and good. The good is that people who might not have been exposed to zines in the past, now can. Also it is easier to get zines. Unfortunately it has also taken some of the more personal aspects of zines away as people use the internet to communicate instead of paper letters. Though I do see some zinesters using the mail to swap zines and other stuff.

There used to be a lot of variety in the subjects of zines. There have always been a sizeable amount of personal, music, travel and poetry zines, but in the past I saw more zines that focused on their creator's own individualized interests and hobbies. Maybe the internet has filled this niche and now people don't feel the need to write a zine about collecting cereal boxes but I kind of miss them. Now I mostly see personal, poetry/fiction, and how-to zines.

are you "out" to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don't understand?
I don't hide the fact that I make zines. Usually if I talk to someone for long enough they will end up with a copy of my zine. Also I sometimes give out copies of my zine in a more formal, academic context. If someone doesn't know what a zine is I usually use the standard, "It's a homemade magazine," or "it's part of independent publishing." Sometimes I even just say, "I participate in independent publishing," type answer. Most people are just like, "Oh." I can tell they don't understand, but don't really care. I don't get into it any further. If someone shows interest I will give them some zines that I think might interest them.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
It feels really good to have something to show for what I do, an actual physical thing. When I was a child I was jealous of the kids who were good at sports or sang well or whatever. I was like, "All I can do is write." I feel accomplished when I get a new issue done.

I have met a lot of amazingly creative and inspirational people through zines. That is one of the best things about making one. Shaun and I met through zines and now he is my best friend and we ran a distro together. Zines also introduced me to a lot of things I wouldn't have known about otherwise, especially politics. I felt more connected knowing there were other people out there who were open about their feelings, experiences, and politics. It is also awesome to introduce a new person to zines, especially if they end up making on themselves.

The thing I like least is the intra-politics of zines. Like in any community or group of people, there are going to be personal conflicts and hierarchies. Some people are just going to get more exposure, whether they deserve it or not, and that may create bad feelings. I really don't like how critical some people are of other people's projects. I think it's awesome if someone just does something as opposed to doing nothing. Yes, there are a lot of poorly-constructed and badly-written zines, zine conferences that go awry, and distros that have a less than stellar selection. If you don't like it, make your own, don't criticize someone else's, especially in public. If you have a problem with someone, tell them. I don't like how centralized the zine community has become on the internet, especially since it rarely takes into consideration that there are some people who don't have reliable access to the internet or who have no internet skills. Some people are doing cool things online, but there are others who don't benefit from it for various reasons. I don't like how homogenous the community is. I would love to see more 40+ zinesters, zinesters of color, queer zinesters, academic zinesters, so forth and so on. The only people who can make that happen are those already involved in zines and I rarely see much outreach.

do zines play a political role in your life? are you involved in other d.i.y. projects? do they play a political role?
My zines have become more and more political as I have become more and more political. When I first started making zines they were more of the "this is for my friends" type with stupid quotes and dumb stories that no one except my friends would care about. I took a three-year break from zines while I lived in Baltimore, DC, and London. I tried making the "this is for my friend" type zine when I moved back to Detroit, but it wasn't happening. I took another break. I started writing zines again trying to deal with some personal stuff I was going through, dealing with growing up in a really ageist society, being fat in a fatphobic society, and the general feeling of alienation that is very inherent in a capitalist, post-modern society. I also wrote about stuff like romance or lack thereof and basically just used my zine as a vehicle to continue writing when I probably wouldn't have written anything otherwise. In the last couple years, my zines have been outright political and I talk openly about reproductive rights, being queer, being fat and American Exceptionalism. I personally think the most political zine I wrote was about having HPV. Sometimes I write personal stuff or more academic stuff, but now everything is constantly under the microscope of my politics.

In the past, while I didn't write about politics, my exposure to zines really affected my knowledge of the world, and radical politics. Politics in a mainstream context or even in a NPR context are still very narrow and only give voice to a small fraction of the world.

In the past, I ran a distro and helped put on a zine fest with Jessika from "Do Not File Under Manifesto" and "Nourishing Ourselves with Herbs During Pregnancy". These were both zine-focused DIY projects. Right now I am more into doing non-DIY work with my local community like volunteering at a food bank and at the newly-opened Museum of Modern Art-Detroit (MOCAD). I don't know how many DIY projects, besides my zine, I will doing in the future.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
Watch your margins! Don't take bad reviews to heart. Trade! Have someone edit your zine for you--not just for spelling and grammar errors, but content as well.

I think an important thing for people to keep in mind when making their zine is "who is going to read this?" If you are making a zine full of inside jokes and pictures of your friends, that's cool, but no one is really going to want to read it besides your friends. You don't necessarily need to make your zine for anyone, but if you want other people to read it you can't just put some dry story about your trip to your Aunt Martha's and think people are going to line up to get it.

Another really important thing to remember is that, unlike a blog, zines are permanent and tangible. That means that in ten years your zine will probably still be floating around. There are things I wrote in early issues of my zine that are not just embarrassing, but shameful to me now

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
I use to run Stranger Danger Distro. Shaun and I started the distro mostly because no one in our area was selling zines and more selfishly, we wanted to promote our own projects. I like distros because it is usually easier to get zines from a distro than from an individual zine-maker. Distros can be more easily held accountable than an individual zine-maker if they don't send you the zines you ordered. Also distros sometimes have back issues that the zine maker no longer has, which is nice. Some people don't like distros because it is a step away from the personal interaction between zine maker and reader though.

Something I am not so hot on is zines being published by someone other than the creator. I understand why some people do it, but I feel like once the zine is not being fully produced by the person or people who made it, it is not a zine. I don't think distros should "publish" zines. I also am not into the idea of distros sellings zines to other distros. This takes away the contact between a zine writer and the person who ultimately decided how that zine is distributed. It takes a lot of control out of the zine-makers' hands, centralizes the process of making zines, sets up a hierarchy where one distro is more important than others and can fix prices, and also affects what zines get exposure and which don't.

are there changes you'd like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
As for the zine community, it pays a lot of lip service to being inclusive and respectful to everyone, but I have found this not to be the case. I would like to see more people outside the "zine norm" making zines--ie, white, middle class, 20-somethings who most likely grew up in the suburbs and usually come from a punk rock and/or independent music background. That is my background so while I appreciate this place where I am fairly well understood I think the "community" needs to be more respectful to other people and not just in a token way. I know some people who don't fit into this category who feel really disillusioned by some of the things that are said and done in the name of zines. If someone says, "what you wrote upset me," I don't think it's enough to say, "Well, that is how I feel and it's my zine so I can write whatever I want." I guess I want to see more accountability. If someone says, "I would not like you to resell my zine about being assaulted," there shouldn't even be an argument about it. Although I can't really go into the whole "reselling zines issue," it is something that has come up. I think there also needs to be an understanding that, paradoxically, zines are very personal, but also that they are a product which is being sold. I guess it's that way with all art.

I want my zine to be accessible to people who aren't part of the zine community. My most recent issue was done as part of an art show. I made a huge copy of the zine with each page being the size of a full piece of paper and hung it on the wall. There were small copies of the zine for people to take with them. When I meet new people I give them my zine, even if they haven't been exposed to underground/self-publishing before. When I went to the North American Labor History Conference I gave out zines to professors, students as well as non-academics and professionals who attended the conference.

I am torn between different directions I want my zine to go in. On one hand, I want it to be more academic, but on the other hand I want it to be more artistic. I am trying to find a balance.

Jami
no_better_voice@hotmail.com

I am working on a zine about my fair city of Detroit which is based on my undergrad thesis. My next zine will be a split with Neely of "Mend My Dress" and "Dear Stepdad." I love getting trades and try to write letters in a timely manner, but sometimes get distracted. I am more likely to write back if you contact me through the mail than online. Also if you want to discuss anything I have said in the above interview, contact me.

zine updates can be found at: nobettervoice.livejournal.com.

(jami's zines)

I found "Broken Pencil" magazine and slowly ordered and traded more zines, mostly fanzine made about the Canadian music scene at the time (anyone remember? Sloan, Eric's Trip, all those bands). "In morning clouds" had lots of band pictures in it. Then I started to find more and more personal zines, partially through the zinesters listserve, and slowly mine came to include more of that, no more bands eventually but still lots of photos. I met lots of awesome penpals and read some amazing stuff.

Somehow I've kept it up, involved in that culture after all these years. For a long time it meant traveling and going to zine fairs and visiting penpals when I was on the road. But slowly, I've found zine cluture here in Halifax, and as a co-founder of the Anchor Archive Zine Library, become someone who encourages and creates zine sharing and reading here.

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?
Really, I don't really know how to use computers or the internet very well. For several years I didn't have a computer or internet access at home, so it was impossible to learn. Sometimes I want to learn to do fancy layout and make websites but really I'm way better off with scissors and glue, and I would rather do things that way. I think that the way that people experience a website and the way they experience a paper zine are totally different. I appreciate zines for their look and feel, for how easy they are to put them in your pocket or share with a friend. I hate reading large amounts of text online, I don't like the aesthetics of computer-made stuff nearly as much as good old cut and paste and printmaking.

I think that the internet has made getting zines and distributing information easier, but hasn't changed the types of paper zines made that much. I think a lot of people are still obsessed with the tangibility of zines and books and refuse to let that go. Maybe there are less computer-layout copied all-text zines out there because the info is online instead.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
I write in bits and pieces in a journal, both impressions and information gleaned everywhere. I should write more, this only happens sporadically. When making a zine I leaf through and copy out what I like, add to it and rearrange it and seek out bits and pieces of other stuff to fill it out. I usually do the writing on a computer, then print it out and work with the text and a pile of photos, images, materials, whatever I've been collecting. I guess I collect images in the same random way as ideas. And then I stick it all together. Retype or rewrite words, make the zine a page at a time, layers of paper thick. I can get started and make a mess and finish it all in a couple of weeks or less. It just takes months to gather the material and come up with ideas.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you've been involved?
The zine communities that I've been involved with have been different over time, so it's hard to comment on one community changing. My role in them have certainly changed, going from young keen teenybopper to older zine educator and zine librarian.

One thing that I think is really amazing and positive is the amazing number of zine libraries and public or university libraries stocking zines. It seems that as the internet becomes the default mode of sharing information, zine making is almost more deliberate and acknowledged as a special art form and communication tool, not just a low-budget magazine. All the articles about zines for years were just "Hey! Look at these wacky teenagers!" and it's nice to see some more thoughtful writing about it all. I think there are more folks (or maybe I'm just aware of more, and hoping) using zines outside of punk subculture, pushing boundaries or where we expect to see them and who has access.

are you "out" to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don't understand?
Yes, lots of people know. Because I help run the Anchor Archive, and for years have ran zine fairs and taught zine classes, many people know about that part of my life.

But still it's interesting to have people tell me they've read my zines--I can distance myself from what I actually make and just become someone who's involved in zines. The local weekly paper, the Coast, is running a zine I made two pages at a time on their comics page, and it's funny to have people make little comments about having seen it.

I field lots of "what's a zine?" questions at the zine library, usually I just point to the stacks and tell people to have a look. My favorite questions come from people spending whole afternoons looking through zines for the first time, asking "who makes these?", "how much would this collection be worth?"

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
I like how accessible and diverse zines are as an art form. I like the inherent politicalness of self-publishing information and stories. I think that first person stories, especially when wrapped around the whole personal aesthetic of a zine, are an amazing way to learn. To me, zines just ooze people's passions and fascinations and personalities.

And I dislike that people assume making zines is just a step towards making a real magazine, and if you're not making money doing it you're failing. People come to the zine library with big publishing plans and I say "good luck. I have no idea what to tell you. That's not what this is about at all." But I also dislike that zine prices stay at $1/$2 and no one will pay more than that, even in the age of copy centre honour system crackdown and escalating postal costs. The difference between the way art multiples and zines are prices is insane, especially since sometimes they aren't that different.

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 think zines have always been political for me. I started reading them as a sheltered stoner sixteen year old, and was slowly exposed to a huge amount of new information and opinions. Reading about experiences far outside my own, like stories of racism or abuse, showed me struggles that others face and helped me understand the privilege that I have. Other stories rang so true, I remember reading in a zine "you don't have to have kissed a girl to know you're queer" and that simple obvious statement floored me totally. I wrote it in my journal and carried it around as a truth in my head for days.

Even recently, I'm reminded of the amazing potential of zines to teach and empower. I toured with the mobilivre-bookmobile in the southern USA last year. More than once I saw a woman sitting quietly reading a zine compiling abortion stories, and wondered about all the women who have never had the chance to tell their story, or hear someone else's. Working with Books Beyond Bars, I compile a zine of poetry by women in prison in Nova Scotia. They are given an outlet to be listened to, their thoughts and art shared with those of us outside. Teaching zine classes to teenagers always makes me think of myself when I first started to figure myself out. I hope to show them something that they've never seen before, challenge them artistically but also challenge them to examine their identity and their place in the world. I hope they can learn from people that are like them, and people that are different from them, and to experience the power of honesty and first person stories through zines.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
Read lots of zines, get inspired by other people's stuff and make lots of your own. Think about what you're excited about and want to share with people and make a zine about that. Keep it simple, every issue doesn't need everything you think and everything you've done crowded inside of it. Write letters to people you like but don't get disappointed or discouraged when people don't write you back. Trade zines with anyone, go to zine fairs and visit zine libraries and bring copies of what you've made.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
I think distros are really handy. When I was first involved in zines I really relished and loved the personal contact that I got through sending and receiving orders. Now I rarely get $2 tucked in an envelope, I more often send off 30 zines to a distro, and that makes my job a lot easier. But I worry about how there's fewer glowing feedback letters written (myself included), fewer chances taken sending out orders. Plus distros (especially the bigger ones) have a lot of control over which zines are widely read, making it harder for little zines that can't get distroed to get read.

I distro zines to promote awesome stuff that's made locally. I make a paper catalog (someday online) and sell zines people and stores, as well as here at the zine library and at tabeling at events. I like doing some of the legwork of distroing for folks making zines, especially if they've just made one and don't really know what to do with it. I also like to show off all the amazing things made here.

are there changes you'd like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
There's lots of ways the Anchor Archive could change, and we're slowly working up to it. There are dreams of moving it out of our living room and into a bigger more diverse DIY centre with other projects, cataloging our collection, doing more workshops with public libraries and rural teenagers and all kinds of other things. I used to depend on a zine community outside of my city but now it's really just here, the zine community overlapping with the activist and art communities. It's really great to be in a city small but big enough to make those connections and feel like people are supporting each other's projects. We've had a residency program to invite zine makers here, breaking down distance barriers and offering time and resources to help people working on zine-related projects.

And personally, I wish I was making more zines. I wish I could better incorporate politics, all the things I think and talk and read about, into zine making and not just make personal petty zines (although those are nice too).

I've made lots of zine over the years, "in morning clouds" and "try try again" and "root", as sell as lots of mini and one-offs, many collaborating with the amazing sonia edworthy.

The Anchor Archive is located in Halifax and only open six hours a week and if you want to visit, get in touch and we'd love that. anchorarchive@gmail.com

PO Box 33129. Halifax NS. B3L 4T6. Canada

sarah's zines can be found here & here.