Last year was the year of zines and travel. I put out the new Stolen Sharpie Revolution and Brainscan 24 &25 and had a zine artist residency at the Anchor Archive in Halifax. I had a small UK zine tour and attended 7 zine events in 4 different countries: Zine Librarian (un)Conference in Seattle, WA, Lond Zine Symposium in the UK, 20th birthday of La Fanziotheque in Poirtiers, France, The Portland Zine Symposium here at home, The Halifax Zine Fair in Nova Scotia, Canada, Canzine in Toronto, Canada, and the Richmond Zine Fest in Virgina.
I also put together the first square foot zine fest at the IPRC, hosted and 2 day zine retreat at our family cabin, had several zine readings and answered a lot of questions for interviews. Paul and I also flew down to California and drove a bunch of books back stopping in the Red Woods, and Crater lake. We took another trip down to San Francisco just to see Jarvis and another trip to Riot Fest in Chicago to see The Dead Milkmen and Screeching Weasel. It was a pretty full year!
I’ve pretty much stayed put this year but it looks like people from all the places I visited are coming to see me! First Caleb from Halifax, the Lucas from Halifax, and Tiphanie from Utah/the world. Next up, another friend from Utah and a bunch of kids from the UK. And those are just my friends! Other housemates have some too!
I’m so glad we put together the guestroom! We even have a guest bike now! I also picked up a guestbook and started filling it with lots of useful information like places to eat, drink and get a bike fixed. I started with things that are 15 minute walk from our house and hope that other people will fill in the rest. I picked up some maps of Powell’s books, downtown, and brew pubs. Now I need to get one of bike lanes and the rest of Portland.
Guest book!
OJ posing with the guest book.
Other than that, we had like our 3rd false spring this year and now it is raining again but at least it isn’t cold.
Alex Wrekk 