Words about words; books about books. If a place where you’ve traveled can inspire a zine, why not the words you’ve just read? Last week, I talked with the editors of It’s Complicated for a piece that should run here in the next few days. The concept behind their zine? Creating feminist responses to misogynist art; their first issue covers everything from the Afghan Whigs to Ayn Rand. The writing is terrific, challenging assumptions as much as it illuminates particular literary […]

It’s a question that was probably inevitable: where does the line between “zine” and “lit journal” exist? It’s one thing when you’re talking about an institutionally-sponsored version of the latter; when you talk about something inspired by a DIY mentality, does it ultimately matter what word is used to describe it? Throw in the way that doing something online lowers the bar to access and thus allows for a lot more writers’ voices to be heard. And you could make the […]

There’s something natural about a zine focusing on a place. It’s a format designed for portability in a case where portability is essential to the subject. Not every travel narrative needs to stretch to hundreds of pages; just as some excursions are planned and others are done more casually, there’s room for both approaches. In 2012, excellent work done by two friends of mine made me manifestly aware of this, and prompted me to delve further into the world of […]

In 1996, the first issue of my zine came out. By 2001, I’d released six issues. I made some headway on a seventh issue, but never quite finished it up — the label a friend and I were running took up too much time, and soon, the job that I was working in those days began to occupy an even larger amount of my time. It was called Eventide, and it was one of the most satisfying experience of my life […]