Alex Wrekk
Zines I stock: Brainscan and Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2
Age: 32
Current location/hometown/other significant places you've lived: Portland, Oregon USA (My parents like to remind me that I was made in Canada but was born in Huston, Texas USA and lived there for 10 years before moving to Salt Lake City, Utah USA for 12 years and then I moved to Portland in 1999.
How/when I got into zines: I got involved with zines in the early 90's but didn't start making my own until the mid 90's. I had a boyfriend whose father was a monitor for AOL back when AOL thought they were the internet. He was into zines and let us borrow his. At some point I thought "hey, I can do this!" and just started making my own.
Favourite zines/zinesters ever/recently: My favorite zine ever was three a.m. but there hasn't been and issue in several years. Lisa had an amazing talent for mixing images and words that I just fell in love with.
Perhaps a random little story of something that's happened because of your involvement with zines: I went to the UK in May of 2009 and slept on Lizzy's floor!
Other interests/hobbies: I enjoy role playing, vegan cooking, gardening, and drinking and brewing craft beer.
Other "projects" you're involved with:
- Volunteer at the Independent Publishing Resource Center (http://www.iprc.org)
- Organizer for the Portland Zine Symposium (http://www.pdxzines.com)
- Owner Small World Buttons (http://www.smallworldbuttons.com) and Brainscan Etsy shop (http://brainscan.etsy.com)
- Founder of International ZIne Month (http://internationalzinemonth.wordpress.com)
- Nobody cares About Your Stupid Zine podcast (http://nobodycares.libsyn.com)
- Love Letters to Irony Blog (http://alexwrekk.wordpress.com)
- My partner keeps trying to get me to work on music projects with him. So far we have written a couple of songs and I sang backup vocals on the very last song on this page http://myspace.com/paulmichaelburke
Amber Ariane Bettie Bri Candace Cath Ciara Dave aka pups Isy Jon
Zines I stock: Culture Slut and Fight Boredom
Age: October 16th, 1985
Current location/hometown/other significant places I've lived:
Hometown: Lindsay, Ontario, Canada.
Current location: Montréal, Québec, Canada.
I've also resided in Ottawa, Ontario, which is a lovely city and I've done a bit of traveling in England and France.
How/when I got into zines: I have vague memories of reading about zines in old interviews with Nirvana, Hole and Bikini Kill. When I was thirteen or so, there were a few girls around town distributing a zine called !Hey! although I don't think I called it a zine at the time, as it was the first one I ever saw. I probably called it a pamphlet or something. I can't even remember what they wrote about anymore, but I remember that they had crosswords and featured poetry by local teens. They were distributed at high schools and various local businesses. Anyone could contribute, though I was much too shy. I totally wanted to make my own though. A few years later, I starting posting on Hole.com and got into zines hardcore through the girls on there. Maranda (my sister) and I started making zines together and trading with our new friends. I think the first zines I received were Tantrum, Broken Hymen, Pink Collar Ghetto and other riot grrrl type zines.
Perhaps a random little story of something that's happened because of your involvement with zines: I try my best to introduce new people to zines when the opportunity arises. A friend of mine recently started making zines and when he showed one to a mutual friend, she said, "Oh, that's that thing Amber started!" as if I'd started zines. I thought it was pretty cute. Favourite zines/zinesters ever/recently: Doris, Brainscan, Motor City Kitty, Your Pretty Face Is Going Straight To Hell, Queer HOH, High On Burning Photographs, Truckface, Not Sorry, Dirty Love, Kiss Off, List, The Empire Is Falling, Echo! Echo!, Glossolalia, Honey Tunnel, The Exploding Boy, Everybody Moon Jump, Imaginary Windows, 8 Letters, Feels Like Friday, Sisu, Behind Wire Fences, Ghost Pine, everything ever by Niku Arbabi and Katie Haegele. I love me a good perzine, and zines that are related to feminism and queer issues.
Other interests/hobbies: I'm into Polaroids, feminism, thrift stores, tattoos, adventures, mixtapes, to-do lists, cut and paste, pop culture criticism, vegetarianism, chocolate soy milk, porch sittin', PostSecret, angry women, baking, dance parties, sewing and getting crafty, behaving like a child, recycling, twins, typewriters, eccentricity, road trips and the like. I enjoy making buttons and drinking peppermint tea and going on bike rides and writing epic letters... not all at the same time. I just try to do whatever keeps me happy and inspired.
Side projects:
- My Etsy shop: www.helloamber.etsy.com
- My blog: www.hello-amber.blogspot.com
Zines I stock: Braineater
Age: 20
Current location/hometown/other significant places you've lived: Midlands/Wales (where I go to university and where I grew up/still mostly live, respectively)
How/when I got into zines:Um… there is no good story to this! I guess when I was seven and combined my own writing with Beatrix Potter illustrations to create "The Girl Who Couldn't Believe Her Eyes"?
Other interests/hobbies: Reading, knitting, sewing, filming stuff, pokemon, drawing badly
Zines I stock: Anatomical Heart
Age: 26
Location: Cumbria
Hometown: Sheffield
How/when I got into zines: I got into zines by picking up music and punk zines from gigs from the age of about 16. Shortly after that I got into perzines and I still remember my first order from Pander Zine Distro.
Favourite zines/zinesters ever/recently: That Girl zine is my favourite ever. I wish I had all the issues but I only managed to pick up a couple. More recently, the zines that have stood out to me have been Briefcases, Your Pretty Face Is Going Straight To Hell, and Functionally Ill.
Other interests/hobbies: I love mail trades and books and sitting in cafes all day writing in my notebook.
Zines I stock: Motor City Kitty
Bri Z. is a 23 year old feminist/riot grrrl zinester from Kent, Ohio. She also enjoys making music, listening to music, playing music for others as a DJ, cuddling, cuddling with her cat (Jango Wiggles Scuzzbaby), riding her bike and wearing eyeliner. Her first encounter with a zine was finding the punk fanzine/newsletter "Positive Youth" in her dad's things after he passed away, and then she became more involved and began making her own zines once finding the book "Zine Scene" by Francesca Lia Block and Hilary Carlip. Some of her favorite zines are "Doris" by Cindy Crabb, "Culture Slut" by Amber Forrester, "Telegram Ma'am" by Maranda Elizabeth, "Brainscan" by Alex Wrekk, "Love Letters to Monsters"/"You Live For The Fight When That's All That You've Got" by Ciara Xyerra, Mae Undead's zines, "Greenzine"/"Indestructable" by Cristy C. Road and "Playing Victim" by Brittany M. Bri was selected as one of the 20 Coolest Girls in America in 2003 by YM Magazine based on her zine at the time ("Gnosis") and her old band (So Ricki.) She currently DJs at Hot Knees Indie Dance Nights on Fridays in Kent, Ohio, and Ready For The Floor Indie Dance Nights on Thursdays in Cleveland, Ohio. She writes the blog Miss Teen Ohio (missteenohio.blogspot.com) which documents her latest summer art project, and she is working on either forming a new band or writing solo material.
Zines I stock: Giantess and Dirty Laundry
Candace is 26 and lives in Melbourne, Australia. She discovered zines through a local indie youth magazine called Voiceworks, which used to have a zine column. This was in 1999 - she was 17. She ordered everything she could when the columnist provided a list of zines she'd picked up from that years This Is Not Art festival in Newcastle (http://thisisnotart.org/). This is how Candace found Smitten Kitten and Electrocution zine distros (she had ordered zines made by the distro owners). Her favourites zines are 'On Wednesday', a weekly personal zine from Melbourne, Australia and 'Erinsborough Exploits', a political/satirical zine loosely centred around the Australian television series Neighbours. 'Brainscan', 'Telegram Ma'am' and 'Culture Slut' are other current favourites. She misses the now inactive zines :'Songs about ghosts', 'Everything You've Heard is True', 'Rockstar with words, and 'Hope'.
Candace volunteers for Sticky Institute (www.stickyinstitute.com), a zine shop/distro in Melbourne. She also makes regular free zines that lovingly take the piss out of Melbourne's terrible public transport.
In her free time she enjoys reading and picking apart bestsellers, reading actual good books and spending time with her cat, Cricket.
Zines I stock: Here. In My Head
Age: 20
Location: Swansea/Nottingham
Hometown: Sheffield
How/when I got into zines: I met Lizzy in Nottingham uni, where she told me all about the world of zines and let me borrow some of her stock. After discovering that these things I had been making for years had a name and a whole underground community devoted to them, I decided to start zine making properly.
Favourite zines/zinesters ever/recently:Culture Slut, Not Sorry, Cash Cow, Reassess Your Weapons, Rum Lad, Telegram Ma'am.
Other interests/hobbies: Cooking, writing music, watching movies, swimming, listening to music, playing the piano, dancing, blogging, reading.
Side projects:
I am a singer/songwriter/pianist, influenced by Amanda Palmer and Tori Amos. To listen to my music or purchase a copy of my debut EP, visit www.catherineelms.co.uk or www.myspace.com/catherineelms
I am also the editor of Nottingham University Women's Network zine, Artemis. Type "Artemis Zine" into Facebook to find out more and join the group!
Read my blogs at http://blatantblithe.wordpress.com and http://girl-narcissus.livejournal.com
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/catherineelms
Zines I stock: Love Letter To Monsters and Up The Logic Punks!
ciara xyerra, 30, recently re-located to lawrence, kansas. she grew up in ohio & discovered riot grrrl & zines in 1991, at the age of 12. after spending seven years contributing to zines & writing her own grrrl-themed perzine, she organized the first bowling green zine conference (now the allied media conference) in 1999, & moved to portland, oregon a month later. in portland, she started her popular anarcha-feminist perzine, "a renegade's handbook to love & sabotage" & spent two years doing union & community organizing, radical cheerleading, & founding a radical feminist art collective, before moving to boston in 2001. after retiring "a renegade's handbook," ciara spent several years devoted to organizing the annual boston skillshare conference (http://www.bostonskillshare.org) & getting her zine distro, learning to leave a paper trail (http://www.papertraildistro.com) off the ground. she then started producing a series of logic puzzle zines called "up the logic punks!" & a new personal zine called "love letters to monsters". she has also volunteered with the lucy parsons center & the papercut zine library. her hands-down favorite-ever zine is "doris" & most of her closest friends were discovered through zines. she loves to bake, offer relationship advice, & read. after fifteen years of relentless collective organizing, she likes her alone time & has a low tolerance for facile sloganeering.
Zines I stock: Black Carrot and How I Learned To Love Myself And Occasionally Other Men
Age: 29 total
Current location: South Side Chicago, Illinois USA
How/when I got into zines: Riot grrl in the early 90s, Been putting out zines since 93 no plans on stopping.
Favourite zines/zinesters ever/recently: Snakepit, You Don't Get There From Here, 10 Ft Rule, Red Hooded Sweatshirt, No Good Terrable Life, anything really really gay, Profane Existance, Tim Tum, Straight To Hell...anything by Kate Sandler.
Perhaps a random little story of something that's happened because of your involvement with zines: Zine tour! Zine Sex! Zine Party! Zine Bowling! Zine Picnics!
Other interests/hobbies: Making pickles and gayin' out.
Other "projects" you're involved with:
I play drums in the queer core sensation Bromance (http://www.myspace.com/wearebromance) And do tape trading online (http://www.beetfarm.org/tapes) and have a tape label called GAS MASK HORSE with my friend Josh.
Zines I stock: Morgenmuffel
I'm Isy, I'm in my 30s now and have been making zines for more than 10 years! I live in Brighton where I spend much of my time involved with projects like the Cowley Club social centre (www.cowleyclub.org.uk), ABC prisoner support (www.brightonabc.org.uk), a feminist health collective, and the Anarchist Teapot mobile kitchen (www.eco-action.org/teapot). I have a small business baking vegan cakes (www.myspace.com/vegancakebakers - and if anyone can come up with some better name suggestions for us please get in touch...!!) and I do the other odd job here and there. I also often run workshops on stuff from women's self defence to feminist health or vegan cooking, and recently did a zine workshop with a group of 10-13 year old kids which was amazing; they produced a whole range of zines from proper teenage collage and poetry to music to a minizine of lists...
http://www.morgenmuffel.co.uk
morningmuffel@yahoo.co.uk
Zines I stock: You Can't Say No To Hope
Hello! I'm Jon. I'm much older than i feel and a bit older than i look which is cool. I'm based in the urban hell-hole of Nuneaton in the English midlands. I've been reading 'zines and writing letters to folks since the mid 90s, but only started writing 'zines myself in 2003. The best 'zine ever was Jellybrain, written by the insane genius Paul Raggity right here in Nunners (this is something i'm quite proud of). I also love Morgenmuffel a lot, but i'm a bit out of touch with what's going on in the 'zine world today.Through 'zines i've got folks i write to all over the world which is awesome, if expensive sometimes, as i love sending and receiving letters. My best ever review was by Chip in the much missed Headwound, who said i was "like Bill Oddie on drugs listening to evil hardcore". I'm not a huge fan of drugs, but the Bill Oddie bit is pretty accurate and i do enjoy a nice bit of evil hardcore. Outside of 'zines i love all that nature stuff and being outdoors, interesting music, sweaty gigs, and old unfashionable Japanese cars.
Sinoun
Zines I stock: Smelling Trees and Small Tasks of Labour Suit Her Slender Bones
Age: 26
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Hometown: Sheffield
How/when I got into zines: zines were a part of me my whole life, i just didn't know it. my interest became "official" when i received a catalog from spco-op in the late 90's and learned that there was a huge community of all kinds of people who printed their own "booklets", which we call zines!
Favourite zines/zinesters ever/recently: some of my favorite zines come from: lark pien, meg favreau, celso, ben castle, and elizabeth j.m.w.
Perhaps a random little story of something that's happened because of your involvement with zines when i was a little girl, i always wanted to start a newsletter about my life that included real stories as well as fictional stories. i found a ton of joy writing and layout out the project. since we didn't have the technology that we have now, i copied and pasted, used my typewriter, and hand wrote a lot of stuff. i completed an issue or two, but don't remember what happened to them. it would have been so awesome if i knew about the world of zines as a child!
Other interests/hobbies: music is the love of my life.
Other projects: i always have projects waiting for me to nourish. www.anatomicair.com is where i attempt to archive it all. my head never stops coming up with new ideas and i can't keep up.
Tukru
Zines I stock: Your Pretty Face Is Going Straight To Hell
Age: 27
Current location/hometown/other significant places I've lived: i've lived in medway, in kent since 2003, but i'm originally from a small town in south western finland.
How/when I got into zines: i read about zines on the internet when i was about 16 but i didn't have any means of reading any cos this was the days before paypal and i could only get $$ bills from the currency exchange in helsinki. i made a couple of zines hardly anyone has ever read for trades before i moved to england, and forgot about them for a while. i only really properly got into zines again during my last year of college when i did my dissertation about perzines (i studied photography..) and started making them again, first art zines with my boyfriend and then i started on your pretty face is going to hell few months after i graduated.. that was three years ago and here i am!
Perhaps a random little story of something that's happened because of your involvement with zines: one day last year i received a letter from a lady called emma from 20 minute walk from me, she'd read my zine and i made a new local friend! she lives in brighton now, but every once and a while she comes back to medway to visit her parents and i get to hang out with a zine friend. which is really nice, since most of them live overseas. Favourite zines/zinesters ever/recently: truckface, rockstar with words, culture slut, telegram ma'am, motorcity kitty, my girlgang, love letters to monsters, university..
Other interests/hobbies: knitting, taking pictures, being geeky about harry potter & doctor who, cooking & baking, watching bad movies & silly tv shows, playing with dolls and daydreaming about unicorns and the moominvalley.
Side projects:
- vampire sushi distro - wmz page: http://wemakezines.ning.com/profile/VAMPIRESUSHIDISTRO (real website coming soon..)
- website & blog - http://www.tukrulovesyou.com
- knitting & stuff - etsy show http://knifecrime.etsy.com
- a cooking zine called the queen is fed, first issue still in progress
- & a band that only plays at her birthday parties, if even then, the dead ladies.