interview with max krafft

max writes "i was a teenage vegan cookbook" zine & seems to move a lot. (interview originally posted january 8, 2008.)

how did you get involved in zines/d.i.y. publishing?
I’d been cooking and baking a lot since high school (where I had a few zinester friends), especially after I left for college and became vegan. One of my friends liked my dessert recipes so much that s/he told me “you should write a cookbook”, so I did.

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 really enjoy the act of physically creating my zines and computer-based design is nowhere near as satisfying to me as paper and pen. While the internet is useful for sharing information, there is something charming about the zine as an art object/artifact, something personal that most websites and blogs lack. Also, for cookbooks in particular I like to have something that can be set down beside the mixing bowl for easy reference, that can get dirty and dog-eared, and that can be flipped through casually before dinnertime. Finally, not everyone has or wants a computer or internet access, and insofar as zines carry the connotation of independent and anti-establishment works they have to be able to exist outside of such an increasingly commercial medium.

The internet does provide an easy alternative for people who aren’t necessarily committed to the physical layout, printing, and distribution process, and can be used to supplement and distribute paper zines. To that end I periodically update my own cookblog (www.iwasateenagevegancook.blog.com), where I add/illustrate/extrapolate recipes and provide a paperless download option for my printed work.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
I usually carry around a little notebook to record ideas as they come to me, which, in the case of my cookzines, could be anything from potential flavor combinations or recipes, cookbook themes and titles, pithy anecdotes, other peoples’ comments on my work, or graphic design ideas, as well as the ingredients and results of my cooking/baking experiments. Once I feel like I have a good amount of workable recipes and a coherent theme I’ll start doing the actual design, first by settling on a graphical style, then sketching a rough draft of the cover and a storyboard-style layout of the interior pages. After I’ve finalized the recipes and accompanying text I fold a bunch of paper into facing pages, plot out all of the margins and guidelines, lightly pencil in the text and illustrations, then ink everything in. Finally, I scan the whole thing and make any final edits or corrections in photoshop, save the pages as .pdf files, and print them out.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you’ve been involved?
I don’t know too much about the zine community, being something of a curmudgeonly hermit myself, but just based on the audience that my own work has found I’d say that it has gotten larger recently thanks to the internet, if not necessarily more mainstream. As for the zine-making process, I think people are using computer technology more frequently as it has become more readily available, especially in combination with older-school layout and design methods like screen-printing, hand-drawing, photo-copying, and type-writering.

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 go out of my way to keep my zines a secret, though I usually only mention them to people if I think they’ll be interested. Most people can understand the idea of cookbooks all right, so I’ll sometimes just leave it at that and let them figure out the whole anti-capitalist/queer/post-modern comic book/cultural commentary angle themselves.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
I like that the zine world still exists as an independent/underground scene. Reading zines is a good way to find out what some other possibly like-minded people in the world are doing and thinking about, and the level of artistry some people bring to their work can be inspiring, too. I dislike that zinesters can be overly self-involved sometimes, but that’s true of people in general, so whatever.

do zines play a political role in your life? are you involved in other d.i.y. projects? do they play a political role?
Zines are definitely political for me; veganism is a polarizing subject in its own right, and I’m not above slipping subversive non sequiturs into the margins of my recipes as well. The most political aspect of my work, though, is probably just that I’m trying to create and share something outside of the larger capitalist marketplace, thereby taking a personal stand against commodification. I would say that my occasional work as an independent musician and writer is political in the same way.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
The community is as important as you make it, and you shouldn’t be turned off from making zines out of concern that you might not be hip enough to hang with all of us cool kids. The work itself is the important thing, so write in isolation if you have to, then share it with as much or as little of the world as you want. Read some other peoples’ work while you’re at it and that’s your zine community right there.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
Distros should make it easier for people writing zines to share their work, expanding their potential audience and allowing authors to see what others are writing about. They also can serve as filters, as the people running them can decide which zines to carry in their inventory based on quality or content considerations. I think the best distros are the ones that have personality and politics of their own.

are there changes you’d like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
My own work has become increasingly illustrated, to the point where it is almost as much a graphic novel as a cookbook. If and when I make another volume I’d like to see how much further the boundary between the two can be blurred while still producing something useful and entertaining. I should probably learn how to draw.

interview with julian

julian writes the zine "one way ticket". (interview originally posted february 18, 2008.)

how did you get involved in zines/d.i.y. publishing?
Basically, through punk. I grew up in a tiny town on Vancouver Island that had a surprisingly active DIY punk/hardcore scene when I was a teenager. Despite the town being isolated and unknown, there was a sincere bunch of kids who created a tight-knit and heartfelt community of sorts. At all of the first shows I went to, there were scrappy personal zines being handed out or sitting on tables at the back. Some of the older kids also had a zine distro stocked with stuff from all over, and after buying a few zines from them I was hooked. As I got more involved in the scene, and the older kids moved away, I started a record and zine distro with a friend. My mailbox became a tenuous connection to the punk/zine underworld even before I had made my own zine.

The local scene had a definite urgency and rawness to it. Beyond that, everyone seemed to just be doing whatever they wanted to do without asking permission—starting a band, making a zine, booking a show. And that influenced me profoundly and was something I wanted to revolve my life around. During those early years, there were dozens of personal mixed with political zines being made locally, and I was blown away by the honesty and emotion of it all, even if now I would look back on a lot of it as angsty ranting. So I feel like the desire to write a zine came out of this context, to contribute to something going on around me and to tell my own story like all the ones I had read.

It took a while for me to actually put something out. After many embarrassing attempts I’m glad I never reproduced, eventually me and two friends challenged each other to make zines before a show in the summer after I graduated highschool. That was “One Way Ticket” #1, almost six years ago. In the months after that, I got a lot of encouragement both from the punks at the giant collective house I moved into and from some reviews. There were some orders and some letters and after that I was hooked.

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 wasn’t doing the zine before the internet was around, so I’m not sure how well I can gauge the changes. I don’t think the internet has or will change people’s desire to read things that aren’t on screens. I hate reading stuff on a computer even though I’m a total nerd. When I put out a zine there is an immense sense of tactile reality to it: folding, sorting, stapling, holding. Turning the pages. Handing it to someone. Carrying it in my pocket. Stuffing envelopes. I think that this visceral quality changes the way you feel when you read the text, and that’s why I put out print zines. It can enable a more intimate connection between reader and writer. At least, that’s how I feel like when I read a really good zine. Recently, I was reading “Rice Harvester” #13 on my loft bed by the light of my headlamp and I was overcome by the intensity of his story. It felt like the most intense thing I had ever read. Now, if I was reading someone’s blog or something, I doubt it would have been the same.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
Difficult. Frantic. Exhausting. I don’t write all the time and even though writing is a creative and exhilarating experience, it requires a lot of discipline for me, forcing myself to get things done.

As far as process goes, I usually have an idea or a few sentences that sort of congeal in my brain and I work them over while I’m walking around, on the bus, biking, watching bands. When a bunch of stuff builds up in there, it becomes sort of unbearable and I decide to make another zine. Then I work furiously to make some deadline I’ve set for myself, like a trip or a zine fair, and never seem to have enough time. I write everything out in by hand in notebooks or on scraps of paper, then type it up and print it out and edit it. Editing for me involves scribbling all over the print outs, cutting out tons, adding in entire new parts. I used to spend a painstaking amount of time on cut and paste layout but I’ve since become more interested in type setting and typography, and have realized that sometimes good layout involves the details that you don’t notice. I also got tired of people telling me my zine looked like “In Abandon”, even though it did. For the last zine I used InDesign because I’m addicted to ligatures, Photoshop to make fake half-tone photos, and rub-on letters to do the headings. My natural handwriting is nearly illegible if I don’t spend concerted effort on it, but if I have time I’d like to handwrite parts of zines or whole zines in the future, because handwritten zines have always impressed me. I still feel like each issue is an experiment, and I don’t want to give that up.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines haschanged since you’ve been involved?
I’m sort of on the outskirts of the zine community and haven’t been involved for that long. It does seem like people don’t order zines based on reviews anymore, but I’m sketchy and change addresses a lot, so that might just be my personal experience. The zine community also seems like more of an institution now: big annual zine fairs, established magazines, monopolizing distros… but that trend is pretty old if you think about it. It seems less people are making weird, explosive zines in one night just for the fuck of it, and it’s too bad because I always really liked those sorts of zines.

are you “out” to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don’t understand?
I wouldn’t call myself a zinester but everyone in my life knows I write zines. My mom helped proof read #3 and remains a thoughtful critic. Recently we were talking about how after I graduate university this summer she’ll be at a loss for what to tell my relatives since I’ve got no career ambitions or solid life plans. I said, ‘Just tell them I’m a writer,’ and we both laughed.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
Best: The friends and penpals I’ve made, trading zines through the mail, the excitement of having things pop up in my mailbox, having a reason for all-nighters spent screen-printing and putting zines together, hanging out at kinkos, being part of a murky and complicated secret world, having an expressive outlet to keep me mentally stable, the fact that I can probably meet and talk to all of the zine writers who’ve inspired me.

Least: shit that’s expensive, zines that are boring, when we forget to live our lives because we’re too busy writing about them, when institutionalization and routine makes things devoid of passion and excitement, zines as identity, any sort of emerging zine canon.

do zines play a political role in your life? are you involved in other d.i.y. projects? do they play a political role?
The zine changes the way I live, to a certain extent. It has changed the activity of my daily life through personal connections, events, travels and such that revolve around my zine or zines in general. To the extent that politics is about altering our immediate experience of the way we live, then the zine plays a “political role,” I suppose. But I write stories about my life because I have difficulty with abstraction. Politics is a strange beast, especially in so far as it involves the abstraction of our lives. I’ve been an anarchist since high school, involved in fleeting ways with a lot of different projects (Food Not Bombs, Books to Prisoners, an anarchist reading group, a radical bookstore) and yet still approach “political” projects with caution and difficulty. These days I read a lot of philosophy. I find that I have more open and unanswerable questions than solutions, answers or programs. I’m not an activist and am not interested in most political “organizing,” but part of living my life in a fulfilling and meaningful way often involves social and community action of some sort, and that’s been reflected in my zine. I’m trying to figure a lot of these things out right now, and am less sure than ever about conclusions.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
Just be honest and give your zine to lots of people for feedback. Write lots of letters. Remember that the content is important, so get out there and experience the world intensely so you have something worth writing about. Don’t think that it’s easy to write or make a good zine, but all that sweat, heart and soul shows through. Show your seams, lay yourself bare, and try not to get turned off by the exclusivity or snobbishness that we can sometimes get carried away with. Remember margins (this took me five years). Don’t believe or trust people who tell you it’s too hard to steal photocopies these days.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
I’m really glad there are big US distros because I could not afford to keep my zine cheap and send it out to very many people in the US because of Canadian postage rates. Canada Post is a fascist organization. I don’t like it that a distro like Microcosm is so huge that at times it seems like the de facto censor of the zine world, even though they’ve helped me out a lot and been great people. And there are other distros and more stores that sell zines now, so I’m unsure if my critique is fair. Distros are good for setting up tables at shows and events to make zines accessible without compromising our DIY ethics. I think there should be more distros, and I’ve personally done two and know how much effort is involved. I gave up on it but I’m glad others haven’t. I’m also partial to thinking that it’s ok if distros come and go and serve more limited purposes, and while establishment and longevity has its benefits, it shouldn’t be our only goal.

are there changes you’d like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
I’ve always felt sort of on the fringe of the ‘zine community,’ and my identity isn’t bound up with my zine. There are things I like and things I don’t, but overall it seems to be a constant source of surprise and inspiration, if at times frustrating. What seems more interesting than the general trends of the zine world is what you find when you look below the surface. There are always a few misfits and maniacs just doing zines that get me stoked despite the frustrations I might have with the zine community as a whole.

My zine is constantly evolving. I’m excited to be finally finishing university because it sapped a lot of my writing energy and has forced me at times to lead a pretty boring existence. I have some ideas for different types of zines and projects in the future: an in-depth view of straightedge with interviews and stories from different perspectives, a series of introductions to contemporary philosophers in zine format, a guide to DIY karaoke, a west coast bike/zine/mayhem tour… and whether any of these see the light of day is another question… “One Way Ticket” #6 should be done before the summer with stories from highschool that will hopefully make people laugh.

interview with helen walden

helen lives in portland, maine, where she listens to a lot of heavy metal & writes the scathing political perzine "doctrinal expletives".

how did you get involved in zines/d.i.y. publishing?
I’m not entirely sure where I first heard of zines. I know I was about 11 or 12 – I think it was either from an issue of my mom’s Utne Reader or from Sassy‘s Zine of the Month. I made my first zine in fifth grade and it was absolutely godawful, but it was a great way for a bored adolescent girl in rural Maine to pass the time so I kept at it. It also corresponded with my growing interest in punk rock – my zines helped me meet folks who had interests similar to mine and could commiserate with me about being mocked for weird clothes and hair.

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 like that paper zines are tangible – I like being able to curl up in bed and read a zine. Maybe this is silly but it feels more intimate and personal than reading a blog or something. I also don’t like reading long or serious pieces of writing over the internet – I start getting a headache after about three paragraphs.

I like that the intertubes have made it easier to get zines – that’s important for kids who are growing up in crappy small towns and don’t know anyone who does a zine but still want to get their hands on one. It also gives people a place to put crappy dashed-off writing, so they don’t kill any trees expressing it. Then again, I have seen people whose zines consisted of copy-and-pasted Livejournal entries so maybe that filter effect doesn’t work for everyone.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
Usually when a particular issue has been on my mind for a long time, I decide I have to write about it because otherwise it’s going to bug me forever. And when I’ve been thinking about something for a while, I usually have a handful of phrases and ideas in my head about it and I just need to string them together in a coherent manner – sometimes this is really easy, other times it’s insanely difficult.

I either write it out by hand or on a computer. Usually I only write by hand when I want to include drawings or I have a pretty good idea of exactly how I want to phrase things – I prefer writing on a computer because I edit a lot as I go along, which is a real pain in the ass when handwriting.

My layout process is pretty lazy, honestly. I use pictures from discarded library books for page backgrounds and just cut up and rubber-cement my text and drawings on there. I usually just take whatI can get from library book sales but I prefer medical-type pictures or ones of dusty, crumbling ruins (I am so metal).

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you’ve been involved?
It’s hard to say because I like reading zines but I don’t really keep up with The Community (TM). I do know I have to defend zine-making a lot more now, to people who are like “So why don’t you just have ablog?” Grumble grumble.

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 really talk about it that much – not because I’m trying to hide it, but because it’s something I never think to mention for some reason. So no, I’m not “out” to a lot of people, but that’s not really intentional. Since most of the people I hang out with are punk kids, they mostly know what zines are already, but on the occasions when I get to explain zines to non-p-rock types I just say the usual: “It’s a self-published low-budget magazine.”

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
My favorite thing is pretty simple: I like getting feedback from folks about my writing, either from friends or total strangers. The stuff I write about is all stuff I like to discuss with other people,so it’s nice when I actually get to do that.

My least favorite thing is the cliquishness and the cult of personality that develops around “celebrity” zinesters sometimes – usually this is because their work is good, but it’s still annoying when folks are like “Oh, I got the new zine by THIS PERSON” and seemingly care more about the author than the quality of the zine itself. This is a pretty minor gripe, though.

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 write about politics a lot in my zine, and I’ve used it as a way to get into political discussions with people, so it does play a political role in that way. I’m not involved in many other DIY projects at the moment, but that’s mostly because school is devouring my life, and hopefully once I’m done with that I’ll take on more projects.

I really like the politics of DIY publishing – the idea that your shit doesn’t need to look professional or whatever, it’s just important that you’re speaking for yourself. I really want to remind kids of that whenever I see a distro table that’s like 10 Crimethinc pamphlets and nothing by the kids themselves – I don’t want to read another copy of “10 Reasons Capitalists Want To Sell You Deodorant”, I want to hear what you have to say! I named my zine after a song by Carcass that’sabout the dangers of living your life through someone else’s words and letting other people speak for you – don’t let that happen! Do more zines!

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
Read a lot of zines. The zines I did got a lot better once I read other people’s work and saw the cool stuff they were doing – I didn’t directly imitate it but it opened my eyes to all the fun possibilities of the zine medium.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
I like distros a lot. I move pretty frequently and I can be bad with answering mail so they’re definitely a good thing for me and other zinesters with the same sort of issues. They’re also good for folks who are just getting into zines and want to get a whole bunch of them at once – the first zines I ever got were through someone’s distro and it was a good way to see a broad cross-section of what was going on in the zine world at the time. Having my zine distroed also allows it to go to places that I do not have time or cash to travel to. So yeah, I think distros play an important and useful role.

are there changes you’d like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
I wish I had a better work ethic – my output tends to be pretty sporadic. Also, I wish more people in general did zines – even when people do pretty terrible zines they tend to get better over time. That’s about it.

interview with greg

greg writes the long-running zine "rice harvester" & has been in a whole slew of punk bands. i think right now he lives in the bay area. (interview originally posted march 22, 2008.)

how did you get involved in zines/d.i.y. publishing?
In 11th grade, I persuaded my high school to let me make a school newspaper, even though i had absolutely no obvious journalistic experience other than being in a half-assed Alabama journalism class. Basically, I just wrote a zine ranting against the school. They gave me money to print it, but I figured out my first copy scam and kept the cash. They were stupid by not asking for receipts. Around the same time, I was finding out about local zines around Alabama. They were, more or less, just trash about garage rock and hating skinheads. The idea that I could write whatever I wanted and people would read it was really intriguing to me. So, I wrote less about my school and more about punk and pinball. That became the first issue of “Rice Harvester”, which I printed in the summer of 1995.

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?
Honestly, I just really like it a lot. I like having this physical thing to hand to people when traveling around. I’ve tried writing things on the internet, butI don’t get the same feeling from it. Also, I don’t think as much about what I’m going to say when I’m typing on the internet. It’s gotten me in trouble before. It’s just not healthy or constructive for me. Writing doesn’t always have to be immediate. Also, I like the clutter that zines cause. I love how junk, zines, cassettes, photos, art and clunky analog equipment takes up space. I keep seeing the world moving in this direction of creating smaller technology and having less clutter and….I just don’t like it. If I ever tried to lay out a zine on a computer, it would be the hardest thing ever for me.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
When I first started writing “Rice Harvester”, I didn’t edit at all. I wrote everything out on notebook paper, taped it onto punk fliers, scammed the copies and gave it to my friends. They were terrible zines. At some point, I realized my zines were making theirway out of Alabama (my home state) and into the hands of people I didn’t know. So, I started paying more attention to detail and editing. Now, I edit a lot more, but the layout hasn’t changed too drastically. In my last issue, some of the originals were written on paper that was yellowing and older than me because it’s what was laying around in my room. I’ve tried making my handwriting as legible as possible in the last few years…I keep in a lot of mistakes though…nothing is perfect.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you’ve been involved?
I’ve been writing my zine for almost 13 years and I’ve never felt like I’ve been a part of any sort of zine community, so I’m not sure how to comment on that. Most of the zines that I like have stayed consistently great, with the exception of one or two. It seems like more people are making zines full of art now, which is fine, but I’d rather read about how folks deal with existing in this fucked up world that we inhabit. Maybe making art IS their way of dealing with it.

are you “out” to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don’t understand?
Since I’ve been doing my zine for so long now, a lot of my friends and acquaintances know about it. It’s not something that I really talk about too much. It’s just something I do. I’ve never called myself a “zinester” or referred to myself in that context, even though it’s a big part of my life.

I don’t try and explain it to people who don’t understand. A couple years ago, on tour, I was selling zines at a table at a show in Birmingham. These sorta hipster-looking high school kids were thumbing through an issue and looking confused. They asked what it was. I tried to explain it to them, but they looked at me like I was a nine-headed alien and stopped talking to me. Then, they made fun of me.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
I like how a lot of my favorite zines exist outside of corporate bounds and mass advertising. I like that I can travel around the country and give it to people for free or cheap. I like that I’ve given multiple copies to traveling punks and they’ve told me later that they sold it for beer or food. I love that people can use the medium to say whatever they want and get it out to an audience. That’s only a few things. There’s a lot of things I don’t like as well, but I’m not the most optimistic person. I feel like some larger distros have an unspoken monopoly over bookstores and infoshops that I find unsettling….and maybe some artists’ work has been overused.

Ultimately, I think my concerns are rather petty.

do zines play a political role in your life? are you involved in other d.i.y. projects? do they play a political role?
“Political” is kind of a vague term to me…and yes, they do. I’ll just leave it at that.

I’ve gotten more involved in screen printing over the last few years and I’ve been trying to teach people how to do it well and cheaply. I just helped two friends build a lot of screens. They made a lot of political posters that questioned the ethics of different candidates in the upcoming presidential election. Now, they’re wheatpasting them all over the country. I used to go to large protests, but I’ve become disillusioned with group tactics in the past few years. I also play in D.I.Y. punk bands, which can be questionably political.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
Strive to have your own voice and do things in your own style. Wholeheartedly embrace your mistakes and learn from them. Free photocopies exist somewhere always.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
I just started using distros with this past issue, so I’m not that familiar with them. I think the writer should always retain as much control over their zine as possible. Distros should get it out to people and stay as honest and reliable as they can. The good distros should be commended for all the hard work they do. Basically, don’t be a shithead.

are there changes you’d like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
Since I don’t see myself as a part of a zine community, I don’t know of any changes that
need to take place. I know I run the risk of sounding like a snob by saying that, but I’m just trying to be honest.As far as my own zine goes, I’d like to explore more of the tangents in my head that i usually suppress. In my last issue, I left out how I feel about violence, prison issues and suicide because I thought some of it might freak out people who know me. I wasn’t ready for those conversations, but now I am….I think.

If you’re a punk (like me) who has been shot or stabbed, please write me. If you’re not, you should still write to me. Thanks Ciara.
write to:
Greg p.o. box 3381
Bloomington, IN 47402

interview with emmalee conner

emmalee currently writes the zine "toothworm," but has been making zines of various names for many years. she's also been in an array of punk bands, including rosa & punkin' pie. (interview originally posted october 22, 2007.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
Read a lot. Be it other zines, the newspaper, books, short stories, poetry, or autobiographies. The more I read/listen to music/watch informative documentaries rented from the library, the more i see my own stories form and mold more clearly. Don’t let yourself become too limited by trends or taboos.

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

are there changes you’d like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
I’d like to see more people producing. I’d like to see myself become more focused with my writing which tend to be a web of my experiences tied together with quotes/themes from songs and books. I’d like to see more zines that blend the classic “narrative” style with the newly popular idea of “art zines”.

interview with eva louise

eva wrote the amazing zine "what i saw from where i stood". she is a mama living in maine & hopefully will write another zine again someday soon. (interview originally posted may 21, 2008.)

how did you get involved with zines/d.i.y. publishing?
I don’t think I had ever read a zine when I made my first zine. I had a friend named eleanor whitney, (who was like, the hippest hip that ever hipped). she started writing a zine called “indulgence” and I guess I thought, “that’s awesome, I can do that.” My ass of a high school boyfriend said something like, “you only want to write a zine because you want to be like eleanor.” Which infuriated me internally, (probably because it was true) and only made me want to write a zine more. My first zine was called “maisonette.” it was all prose and goopy syrupy juvenile bullshit. I had no politics, no beliefs and no struggle in my life. I was not informed or experienced in any way. Maybe a zine by a very naïve person could turn out inspiring and endearing, but “maisonette” was not the one. If you have a copy: do me a favor and destroy it. (this seems like it could be a common sentiment for people’s feeling about their early zine-making efforts.)

I toyed with the idea of making another zine for years, but didn’t know what to say. I knew that if I made a zine again I wanted it to actually offer something tangible, to speak about experiences that could impact people, to celebrate relevant aspects of being an anarchist lady, and to do it with beautiful layout.

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 far as the internet goes, I might as well be a luddite. I didn’t know zines had ever taken a computer double-life until a couple months ago. I don’t know why but it breaks my heart. There’s just something about paper. The smell of toner and the romance of ripping my hair out trying to get my pages photocopied squarely are forgivable by the end result of having a paper artifact. Zines are just like typewriters, rub-on letters, hand sewing, ancient books from the library, mason jars, cast iron skillets, patching your jeans instead of getting new ones, riding your bike when you could drive. I love things that live without being plugged in, that can be exchanged from hand to hand, and that can get weathered and rough around the edges. Reading a well-made zine is like finding a good letter from a friend, crammed in the back of a notebook that you forgot about years ago. An email could never be the same. (I see you rolling your eyes at me.)

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
It took seeing a disaster area and having a friend ripped from my life to realize that what I needed to write about was going to come from a place of grief, confusion and a need for well-being. Getting knocked up and having amina inspired me to write more, and I felt like the two aspects of the death of a friend and the birth of a new one might just work well together. I can’t write by hand. My handwriting can’t keep up with my ideas. I have a very damaged brain from drugs, I have pretty difficult dyslexia and it is hard for me to focus. I will come up with an idea I feel proud of, and then a minute later only remember that I was happy with the idea, the idea itself floating merrily away. Typing allows me to write fast, even if it is only with my two pointer fingers. Every line of my zine is pasted individually, which is actually how I edit. If I messed up a sentence, I will paste the corrections right in, one tiny word at atime. I edit things to death, needing to know that sentences make logical and literal sense, and that the whole story is concise, mildly comic, and correctly spelled. Side note: my pet peeves are as follows: 1.) phonies 2.) finding typos after I have already made photocopies.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you’ve been involved?
I am not sure. I have never been involved in any community in relation to zines, other than a penpal here and there. I think more people feel entitled to make zines these days, and while they have every right to make a zine, it is too bad that they make a crappy, self-indulgent waste of time that might as well be a photocopied printout of their myspace page. Ouch. Burn. Conversely: there are fucking amazing zines out there that offer wisdom, insight, support and talk wisely about delicate issues. It seems that a lot of zines are really maturing, and I love that.

are you “out” to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don’t understand?
My family knows that I self-publish, but I have never offered them a copy and they have never asked. This is ultimately emblematic of our entire family relationship. They aren’t interested in or proud of me, so I avoid every means of putting myself out there to gain approval. I figure if they haven’t expressed interest in me for nearly 26 years, why start now?

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
I love getting letters from people who have read my zine. I love getting new pen pals. However, it seems that zines have somehow lost that personal nature and people don’t see them as a means of communication anymore. Now they are something that you buy, and read for entertainment. I think it is important to remember that zines are for contact and sharing.

do zines play a political role in your life? are you involved in other d.i.y. projects? do they play a political role?
Sure, zines are a great means of political networking. I do prefer zines that are more personal aspects of being a politically-minded anarchist, though. The biggest d.i.y. project I am involved in right now is being a mama, building a house, and starting a small farm. I suppose this is political, because we intend to grow the bulk of our own food, be able to care for ourselves and our friends, and be able to avoid dealing with the bastards. Maybe I should write a zine about that.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
Be honest, use your own voice, and don’t name-drop.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
I don’t really know much about distros, but I think it is a good way to get my zines out there without me having to think about it. For young kids who know that shit is fucked with the world, but are still figuring out where they stand, distros can be a great way to find allies and inspiration. Also, it is a good way for me to discover zines I may have never seen otherwise.

are there changes you’d like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
Fewer dead friends, more recipes.

interview with cindy crabb

cindy writes the long-running zine "doris," runs riot grrrrr distro, & has been in a whole bunch of punk bands. she lives on a farm in athens, ohio. (interview originally posted september 25, 2007.)

how did you get involved in zines/d.i.y. publishing?
I started doing a zine in ’92. Before that I’d been writing fiction and sort of trying to get stories printed in literary magazines. I wanted to write books some day, and that’s what everyone said you had to do – build up a resume of magazines you’d been published in, but most literary magazines published about 90% men, so it felt pretty hopeless. I’d also been involved in the publication of an anarchist political magazine called “Free Society,” that was pretty amazing and pretty intellectual, and I didn’t feel like I had education level, or the self-confidence to actually write political articles like that. I’d only seen a couple zines, but they totally spoke to me – spoke to this missing place in our world of media and information and expression and politics and experience of the world – that you didn’t have to be an expert to count – that there was beauty and value in working things out in a public way, being human and real.

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 love paper. I love holding things in my hands. I love reading in bed. I don’t always have electricity, let alone internet connection. I don’t believe that everyone else has access to computers. I don’t like reading about difficult things on a computer in a public space. I like to read under the covers, falling asleep. I like to read on long car trips. I like to read on picnics in the green green grass under the blue blue sky with the river whispering and my sweet sister by my side. I like to say, “look at this,” and show her something real. I like the feel of typewriter keys under my fingers. and computers kind of give me a headache.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
I usually try and write and take a lot of notes and observations, do a lot of free writing – stream of consciousness – to see what shows up the most – and then I try and begin to focus my thoughts. It’s a long process. I don’t just print whatever’s on my mind at the minute. I talk to people about the things I’m thinking of writing about – try and articulate my ideas out loud, and hear what they think, and see how these conversations change or validate my thoughts. Then I get really frustrated that I’ll never be able to get it down on paper. I get out the manual typewriter, and usually it comes out a lot better with the rhythm of those keys. I write a few pages, and edit them a few times, read them out-loud (I usually talk out-loud while I’m writing to see how the sentences sound), I feel like it’ll never get written. I lay out a couple pages and show them to my sister and ask her if they’re stupid or boring. She usually says no, but sometimes has some suggestions. I go back and change them and re-lay it out. then I keep going. in that way. If I don’t lay it out as I go, I get overwhelmed. I like to see the progress and take time to draw pictures as I go.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you’ve been involved?
I don’t feel like I’ve been part of a zine community exactly. I’m surprised now how many people I know because they did zines – but at the time it didn’t seem like a zine community, it was more just that tons of people did zines. I don’t know how it’s changed. It seems like people used to do more zine distros that were just setting up tables at shows. More people ask me about distribution now days, like it feels like more people think it’s important to get their zines everywhere, and before people just did them – did tiny press runs (like 20 copies) and that was fine. I liked that.

are you “out” to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don’t understand?
I just explain it as it is. small magazines. self-published. non-commercial.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
I’m excited about my new issue (not out yet) because I think I’d feel comfortable giving it to strangers on the street. The last four issues have had articles that made me less apt to do that. What I like best is that we can break alienation by telling our stories. I like that we can learn to tell the truth about our lives and our experiences under racistcapitalistpatriarchy, and that we can find ways to survive in the practice of truth telling. I like when people start to believe in the value of their lives and their ideas, and when they challenge themselves to think deeply.

the things I don’t like are just petty things and not worth talking about.

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 definitely consider my zine to be political. I want to change the world, and I am an anarchist and a feminist, and I think that in order to have widespread social change, we need to really get to the heart of ourselves, to learn to stop being so afraid of ourselves, to heal, and to fight and organize. All these things and how they intertwine and make a life worth living. this is what I try and write about. I don’t usually read a lot of straightforward political zines these days – although I think they are really useful. I tend to read political books, and more personal zines.

I am involved in other projects as well – mostly women’s healtheducation, and survivor support work.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
be humble and truthful and brave. do it for yourself, not to prove anything. do it because you love it and it feels good and it helps you learn and become stronger. it can be scary to put out a zine, and expecting feedback and not getting it. it’s ok. it’s still worth it. people don’t always know how to respond. editing can be fun, but also it doesn’t need to be perfect.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
distros are great. more people should do them. small distros are great. tabling at shows is awkward but a good way to be able to hang out somewhere and feel like you have a purpose.

are there changes you’d like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
I actually have no idea what the zine community is. I’d like to have my zine come out more often, and hopefully I’ll be able to do that.

interview with suze b.

suze has traveled the world doing activism work & has written "refugee" & "sojourner," documenting her adventures & the political situations of people she has met. (interview originally posted may 31, 2008.)

how did you get involved with zines/d.i.y. publishing?
I didn’t know anything about zines when I put my first one together. I don’t mean I didn’t know how to put one together, because to me the whole point is that there is no “way” to do it, and everyone can and does put something together, whether they distribute it or not. But I mean I hadn’t read all that many zines…definitely didn’t have favorite zines or zine writers. I got in it purely for the accessibility. When I put together “refugee” it was to give out to friends and family and coworkers and fellow city college students/activists/strangers. Anyone who I thought might actually read it. Because I told all the women I had been living with on the Thai/Burma border that I would put the word out about what was going down in Burma, I put together a zine…I didn’t know a better way. I had the not-so-small goal of putting Burma on the map of as many minds to which i might have access.

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 really have no idea how the internet has affected the world of paper zines because truth is, I am an internetphobe. I just learned about youtube a couple of weeks ago when my little brother came to visit me. I’ve got email, but that is about as far as I go. I feel really funny and old or something because I sometimes think that the internet is the death of meaningfulness and our creativity…at least certain forms of it.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
Wow. I wish I knew. I am about to start another zine and I feel like I´m just stumbling around. My zine-making is definitely about compiling though. I don´t “write a zine”, rather, I put together a bunch of stuff I have written in the past. I read old journals and ask close friends if they have any copies of letters I recently wrote to them. Then I’ll cut and paste with photocopies of photos I’ve taken or something that strikes my eye. There isn’t much thought into the layout compared to the writing. Sometimes I will rewrite things so that they are either more understandable or just simply more legible. And sometimes I just say screw it and photocopy what I got. No doubt, it is a fast process of compiling more than anything else.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you’ve been involved?
I have no idea since I don’t follow it much. No doubt, I read hella zines, but not really any series of zines, with the exception of anything and everything by LB (out of Chicago–”So Midwest”, “Truckface”, and “Susie is a Robot”) who is, by far, one of the best writers I have ever encountered in any genre. Really fucken genius. Anyway, I can’t really answer this question as I haven’t been doing this or knowing about it that long.

are you “out” to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don’t understand?
Uh, somewhat. I definitely don’t drop it on folks unless it seems somehow relevant. I will give my zines to someone who I think might be interested, but I don’t put a ton of time into distro-ing or anything like that. I guess I have faith in that happening on its own, if it is worthwile. And with all the feedback I’ve gotten over the past couple of years, I think it is worth it.

On the other hand, I work with youth and yes, I am “out” to some of them, at least in the way that I encourage folks who are writing or taking pictures or drawing or doing any kind of creative production to put something together for their local community…not “get into” the existing zine “community”, but to create a creative community of their own, in whatever form that takes. We have some amazing examples of those communities and role models here in Oakland: Youth Speaks, Youth Radio, and Youth Movement Records, who are really present in just about everything going on in the town.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
Honestly, I’m not sure I know what the zine world is. To me it feels like a little teeny-tiny geographically-disparate but ideologically-similar kinda community. Which isn’t bad, but I guess I just don’t think of it as a zine world. Anyway, I must selfishly say that I think I like the mail best. I send that shit out there and have no idea where it goes…but when someone drops a line from georgia or croatia or new zealand or portland or ireland, acknowledging some engagement or critical thought in regards to what I wrote, well, that definitely gets me off for a minute or day or week, depending. I get excited knowing that other people are learning about what is going on Burma or thinking about riding freights for the first time.

do zines play a political role in your life? are you involved in other d.i.y. projects? do they play a political role?
Zines certainly play a political role in my life in that they inform me and my thoughts. They may not affect politics as politics is popularly defined in this country, but yes, they affect my politics. I’ve been really affected lately by a couple of zines by sex workers. Amazing stuff, of which “Rocket Queen” comes to mind.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
Roll with it for as long as it works for you and others involved. And give zines to folks on the bus, elders & youth! Branch out…because zines are pretty self-serving to the “zine community” if we aren’t reaching out to all kinds of folks.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
Distros should play whatever role the folks willing to put time and energy and love into it hope for. Distro crews and folks rocking it solo get way too little credit for all they put into it. I can’t really ask for more or suggest more. I am incredibly impressed by and appreciative of this effort…enough that I don’t think my criticism is really useful or in touch with reality. I´m certainly not doing all that work to get zines out there.

are there changes you’d like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
Well, I would definitely like to be a part of a zine community that wasn’t madly white-dominant. However, I don’t think it’s about getting folks who you want to be involved into the scene, because, well, that’s just messed up. I am spending more of my energy and time trying to get involved in shit where those folks are already organizing and doing their own things…the battles they see as worth fighting. I choose to support that instead of thinking I should convince them to support whatever else I am doing. And then the “I” and the “they” become a much stronger “we” and “us.”

You can contact me for zines, feedback, trades, or whatever at soj@riseup.net. I am moving back to Mexico in the fall of 2008, so drop me an email if you would like a mailing address—-it is going to be changing a lot in the meantime.

interview with timothy colman

timothy has been making zines off & on for about ten years. he currently lives in philadelphia. (interview originally posted september 17, 2007.)

how did you get involved in zines/d.i.y. publishing?

i stumbled upon the world of riot-grrrl-ish personal zines when i was 13 or 14, i think either on the internet or through pander zine distro. i wrote people letters and wrote away for zines reviewed in the ones i already had, and also that was the age of those tiny little ads tucked into envelopes. i remember writing to the addresses on there and sending along stamps. zines spoke to parts of my crazy 14-year-old self that didn’t have an outlet for expression anywhere else. it was really good for me to have this secret world of zines and zine penpals where i could express things going on with me that it was too scary to acknowledge in my day-to-day life.

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?

oh, man. i love paper and making things and pasting stuff together and i will put things out there on paper that i would never, ever throw up on the internet. i like having something i can give to people, that they have access in a concrete and immediate way. i like having a piece of myself i can give people as a gift. zines are romantic & visceral. it’s hard for me to say how the internet has affected the world of paper zines because “the internet” was already starting when i discovered zines. but back then it seemed like the web of zine connections existed in a paper world rather than an internet realm — there were a lot more zine reviews and listings in zines, a lot more crazy tiny pieces of paper floating around in envelopes, not to mention project-listing-zines — i particularly remember Cherry Cherry Red, a full-size zine that ciara used to do that was basically a compilation of pages people had made & sent outlining their projects and zines.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?

it depends. for the zine i wrote about my dad (with the clever and inventive title “Dad”), i wrote stuff down, by hand, typewriter, or computer, every day for a month. i wrote a lot of it sitting quietly in my room typing on a laptop — but some was also just jotted down whenever it came to me: for instance, on public transit, or on the job while i was supposed to be grading middle school language arts essays. a couple times stuff came to me while i was walking down the street and i just sat down on the sidewalk and wrote until i was done. a few days into February, i spent 10 hours straight going through it all, editing out the parts that i didn’t want to share, printing out the text, cutting and pasting it onto quarter-size sheets. actually a friend of mine was drawing huge portraits from photos as decorations for a party she was having that weekend, and we just sat there working side-by-side in her living room, in almost total silence & intense focus, until 4:30 in the morning! i’m very much a cut-and-paste layout person — i like to have that kind of direct, visceral control, even if it would be easier and faster to use some sort of computer publishing program to do layout. i like to get my hands dirty, literally, to touch everything.

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

i think most of what i had to say, i answered in the internet question. i don’t feel so connected to a zine community anymore, i’m more linked in with ex-zinesters, so my perspective is probably kind of skewed as to what’s changed.

are you “out” to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explainit to people who don’t understand?

not really. i bring it up if i want to, if it comes up. i don’t always like the different parts of my life to overlap; i can be pretty guarded in my day-to-day life about internal stuff. the only way i can put out writing that means anything at all is by turning off the part of my brain that knows people might read it some day. so i don’t always share the zines i make with people in my day to day life, or i might but i do it slowly. i don’t really explain it to people, i just either tell them or i don’t.

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

i like the possibility for exchange and growth, i like how personal and intimate zines can be, i like the impulsiveness of zines as a form of art and how they can express and hold things that might not be deemed “important” or polished. i don’t like how the zine world, like many punk-related things, can sometimes be almost deliberately inaccessible or closed off, and also unaware of everything else going on around it that’s not within its bubble.

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

everything exists politically, as well as concretely/emotionally/et cetera, but i wouldn’t say zines play a particularly political role in my life. my zines tend to be implicitly rather explicitly political. for me, they’re a forum to explore and communicate interconnections between the emotional, personal & political — except i don’t even think those things are easily separable. i’m not sure what counts as a d.i.y. project, exactly, or where to draw the line between d.i.y. & grassroots as terms, but i’d say i’m involved in other d.i.y. projects, including Philly’s Pissed (radical organizing & support work around sexual assault) and the Philly Dudes Collective (anti-sexist men’s discussion/self-education group). yes, these things play a political role in my life.

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

read and listen, write letters, take advantage of the potential for exchange and dialogue. try to get to a zine library and get your hands on some amazing old zines.

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

i like distros that are closely engaged with the people whose zines they’re distributing, and keep control in the hands of the people who make zines, while allowing their creations to get a wider exposure and taking some of the mail burden of their hands.

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

for a long time i was really hesitant to even make a zine, or more generally, put writing out into the world publicly. now that i’ve broken out of that a little, my ongoing goal is to write more and put more writing and more projects out into the world. i would like to see the zine community become more dispersed, diverse and engaged with other communities. i would like people to keep making amazing zines about their lives, their stories, politics & visions. one of the things that’s potentially really awesome about zines is the opportunity for feedback, dialogue, exchange, and i would always like to see more of that.

on that note, if you want to talk about this stuff or anything else, shoot me an email and we can write paper letters: timot at riseup dot net.

interview with tukru

(the image has gone missing. but, tukru writes the zine “your pretty face is going to hell” & runs vampire sushi zine out of chatam, kent, in england. she’s a finnish emigre & active in zine culture & local girl culture, including a regular riot grrrl dance night. check out her <a href=”http://www.tukrulovesyou.com”>website</a> for more! interview originally posted september 13, 2008.)

how did you get involved with zines/d.i.y. publishing?
oh it’s a long long story. i first learned about zines when i was about 16 and i stumbled upon some websites about riot grrrl. i didn’t see a real life zine until a few years later but i was fascinated by the idea. and made my own using the fax machine at my mum’s work for a photocopier. we jammed it a few times. it was a few single sided a4s under the name “kylmä kahvi” (“cold coffee”). it was all in finnish and about bands i liked or had just discovered. i don’t think i ever actually gave anyone a copy though, we only managed to make about two or three. i made my next zine, my first perzine, “kersa x” a few years later when i befriended the janitor & receptionist at my school and got them to let me photocopy things secretly. it was mostly fiction and tidbits of real events disguised as fiction. that only lasted two or three issues that were even distroed somewhere but i never really got involved with the zine community then, just admired it from afar. i had a couple of years’ break when i moved the england to study photography. i just didn’t feel i had anything to say, and i was finding enough of a creative outlet in my website, livejournal and my photography. but then i decided to write my dissertation about perzines. i did some art zines with my boyfriend. and after i graduated i found myself semi-homeless & living out of a suitcase in my boyfriend’s bedroom i started writing “your pretty face is going straight to hell” #2 about my experience. & the rest is history i guess.

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 was on the internet before i got into zines, and i’ve done all that–livejournals and websites and blogs and while i enjoy doing them, they are not the same, or enough. you can’t hold a website in your hand or keep it in your back pocket & read it on the bus or in the post office queue. i like the feeling of dried glue & bits of paper on my finger tips. paper zines are real, and once you’ve given one away they can’t be deleted by a click of a button. and that’s why i do paper zines.

i think the internet has helped to spread the word about zines. obviously i would have probably never heard of them with internet in my small hometown in southern finland. & it makes it easier to find new zines and people i’d probably never find or meet otherwise. but i guess it has isolated people from each other while bringing them together at the same time. letters turn into emails to rushed myspace comments to no communication at all. just anonymous paypal payments.

what is your writing/editing/layout process like?
i have a few different approaches to my writing/layout process. sometimes i just sit down with some bits from my three boxes of photocopies from books and magazines i found at the college library, stick pictures on a piece of paper and start writing. other times i scribble things onto scraps of paper or in one of my notebooks and later type it up with the layout. my only real editing happens when i re-type things from notebooks and when i decide what actually goes in. i hardly ever re-do anything more than that. i have a rather short attention span, and feel editing takes out the spontaneity from my work. i have a tendency of faffing about quite a bit at the end, rearranging pages and not being quite happy with whatever.

how do you think the zine community or the process of making zines has changed since you’ve been involved?
as i said i haven’t really been involved for that long. i don’t think there’s been that much change in the past year. i’ve been semi-lurking for quite a few years but.. there’s not much i can say that i haven’t already in some other answer.

are you “out” to people in your life as a zinester? how do you explain it to people who don’t understand?
almost everyone i know knows about me being a zinester, including the ladies at the toyshop i work in. i talked about zines a lot. but very few people i know in real life have actually read them. i don’t really hand them out to people unless they ask.

i explain zines as they are, little magazine types that i photocopy myself. that’s not the hard bit. it’s when they ask, “what are they about?” and i let out a nervous laugh and say, “me.” they tend to get a bit confused and probably think i’m incredibly self-centered. i’m used to that though, because most people react that way to self-portraits. but to be honest, i’m the only person i can speak for.

what do you like best about the zine world? what do you like least?
least: i sometimes feel a bit isolated because everything seems to revolve around places is the u.s. & canada and us european zinesters are a bit of a minority. i wish there were more of us. but that’s not anyone’s fault, just geography. i have the same problem with pretty much every community. everyone lives so far away.

best: sharing experiences. zines makes me feel less lonely.

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 guess doing anything diy (zines, crafts etc) is inherently political. you know, doing things yourself instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you. i think that’s a political act. it might not change the world in a big way, but tiny bits at a time which is better than doing nothing. i don’t really have any non-zine-related d.i.y. project going on at the moment. when my boyfriend still had a studio with some other local designers we used to do crafty projects together but lately i haven’t really even seen anyone. maybe once they manage to find a new studio. i knit & make jewelry & occasionally sew bags (not so much lately because i don’t have a sewing machine). i’d like to be more involved with stuff but i have some rubbish excuses even i know are useless. i guess i’m just lazy sometimes.

what advice might you have for someone who is new to the zine community?
write letters. don’t be imitated by “famous” zinesters, at least most people are really really nice. read lots of zines. get inspired, but don’t be a copycat (it’s a fine line). don’t think about it too much, over-analyzing kills creativity. but do have an inner shit filter. have fun with it. don’t be in it for the money, it doesn’t happen. use bulk discounts whenever you can. experiment.

what role do you think distros can/should play in the zine community?
i really like distros. i doubt half the people who have now read my zine would have found it or i all the lovely zines i love so much without distros. that’s really their basic role, isn’t it? helping the zinester to get a larger audience to their zine. sure, it takes away the contact between the zinester and the reader, but a lot of time when someone buys my zine from my etsy shop, the only communication between us is a paypal payment email, which really isn’t that different from someone buying it from a distro instead. & they can get other people’s zines at the same time.

are there changes you’d like to see in the zine community or your own zine creation?
i’d like people to write letters again, and i’d like to start writing letters again (i’m working on it). i’d like to be less scared every time i finish a zine.