Hello, reader. Respectfully, I greet you and ask–how are you doing? Do you need any tips for zine making? I hope so, because that’s what I’m giving today.
Maybe every day, I’m giving zine.
trans rural elders conference
I was at the trans rural elders conference, and I agreed to help facilitate zine making during a creative time on the conference’s last day. There was a table specified for us.
Ming had schlepped zines as examples and to share for fun. Thank you to Ming for keeping my zines organized and safe.
I wrote this list of tips for zine making with the help of a friend we attended the conference with. It’s so good to share ideas.
tips for zine making
Watch the margins, a copy machine has its limitations!
Feel free to use a new name, pretend name, alt name to feel free to speak a new truth.
It’s fun and you can make a new zine tomorrow–feel open to the message of the moment! Stakes are low. What you do is up to you.
You are part of a long lineage of zine makers and Samizdat–your truth is a sacred manifestation of the divine.
Be analog–be untraceable–enjoy the materiality of paper, thread, glue, scissors, physicality.
Don’t aim for perfection–the whole aesthetic is raw, emergent, decolonizing, for ourselves–non-hierarchical. For liberation.
Margins matter!
what I’ve learned
Then I made a zine called What I’ve Learned at the Trans Elders Conference. I made it in color, but Ming copied it for me in black & white yesterday. Hit me up if you wanna trade.
It’s about what I learned–you know I’m obsessed with learning. Mostly about my own disabilities, then the other side of the coin, which is my remarkable abilities. A little about self-check hotels being weird, and body shame / fat shame in trans community. It was a lot to learn–I need a lot of rest still as I process it.
I need to lie in bed doing nothing. Also Ming took me to the beach, a glorious day with sunshine.
