My Year in zines: 2012

I don’t really use thins space anymore but I thought I would round out the year with this post.

2012 was a ridiculously active zine year for me. It started with creating the StolenSharpieRevolution.org site to be a companion to my book. The site includes a Zine Event listing calendar. In February I attended the first L.A. Zine fest and it was great! In March I attended the Chicago Zine Fest and it was really fun. We even had a Zine Organizer’s Event where we met with other zine event organizers to talk shop and I released my very first fiction zines (Brainscan #29) as a split with No More Coffee #4. In April I helped the fine folks at Zine Works run zine workshops at Coachella. I made some really great friends and got to see some great bands for free.

In May I opened a brick and mortar storefront and online shop in Portland, Oregon called Portland Button Works and zine distro. July was International Zine Month and I created a poster of events to do for each day of the month.and participated in the 24 hour zine thing. August had the Portland Zine Symposium that I helped organize and I hosted a bunch of guest at my house. In September I quit volunteering at the Independent Publishing Resource Centerafter over a decade of volunteering because I just didn’t have any more time for it after opening the Portland Button Works shop.

October and November were big months. I had been saving for a UK trip for a few years and somehow we had also planned for The Copy Scams, our zine themed pop-punk band, to record and tour. We wrote 3 new songs that we hope to release next year. I got to hang out with a lot of my awesome Uk friends and attend the Leeds Zine Fair and the SE London Zine Fest. I kept a bit of a travelogue on tumblr and put out issue #7 ofNobody Cares About You Stupid Zine Podcast, it’s all about trading zine.

So, now it is December and I did a bit of updating to the Etsy Team Zine and my own Etsy shop and changing it over to a Portland Button Works shop. I’m also offering free shipping Sunday and Monday  in my Etsy shop when you use the discount code: POSTMAN. I also hope to work on my new zine this week. It’s all typed up and I just need to do layout. I also just signed up for the 2013 Chicago Zine Fest! Hope to see you there.

Newsletter! L.A. Zine Fest! Chicago Zine Fest! ZOE!

Ack! hello neglected blog!

I recently put out a new newsletter.You can read it online here. It has info about some of my new button designs, upcoming travel plans, and discount codes for both my Etsy and Small World buttons shops. I believe there is still a day or two to purchase things and have them arrive in time for Giftmas.

Speaking of travel! I found super cheap tickets to LA and snagged a table at the LA Zine Fest! So, I’ll be in Southern California over Presidents weekend in February, just in time to get a reprieve from the damp and gloomy Portland winter. I’m hoping to have a new zine done by then. I’m inspired by 90s zines and hope to make a travel zines about my trip to the UK a few years ago. I’m not going to worry too much about pretty layout and am just going to put it all together after hammering it out on my typewriter. hooray for zines!

I also registered last night for a table at the Chicago Zine Fest. I had so much fun last year that I want to do it all again! I’m also organizing another ZOE (Zine Organizers Event) It is a physical space for zine event organizers to meet and share ideas and experiences about running zine events. We had one last year and it was really fun so I’m looking forward to doing it again.

And all this talk about Zine Events reminds me, we really really really need people to help us organize the Portland Zine Symposium. The last two organizing meetings have been pretty empty. A lot of the old organizers are burnt out and we need some new blood. We should be having an open meeting at the beginning of the year.

 

writing in September, zine event listing, and food from my kitchen

I joined this Facebook group to challenge myself to write 15 minutes per day in September. It’s been really helpful. I expected to write for the fiction split but the muses had other things in mind. I have been compiling a zine about zine events. It has been going really well.  I have been kicking around the idea that there should be a calendar of zine events. Well, in true DIY fashion, I started one myself and attached it to this blog.

Go here and let me know what’s missing. I’ll add more when people tell me what to add.

I was also invited to the “Last Night’s Supper” group. I feel like I am posting more than other people. Maybe I have been cooking more? Here’s what I have made and forgotten to take photos of.

*Red peppers stuffed with quinoa, corn, black beans, kale, and onions. Green beans with slivered almonds, and sauteed summer squash from the garden with fresh herbs.

*House made BBQ seitan, coleslaw, and potato salad.

*whole wheat bread and strawberry/blackberry jam from fruit grown in our yard.

*multi-grain pilaf with lentils, quinoa, teff, a variety of rices topped with steamed kale, green beans and peppers with a green salad.

*roasted garden tomatoes with a sweet pepper, some olive oil, and balsamic vinegar for hours in the oven at a low temperature and made into a sauce served over spiral pasta and sauteed garden squash and greens.

*vegan perogies (potato, onion, mushroom) topped with sour cream and caramelized onions. Also with steamed corn, kale, and zucchini. I used some left over perogie dough and made tiny blackberry turnover with berries from the yard.

*Home made vegetable soup (veg, red and green lentils, split peas and alphabets) roasted beets, and store bought vegan Field Roast sage apple sausage.

Last night was pretty epic and super yummy:

* ravioli from scratch filled with tofu ricotta and topped with a coconut milk based alfredo sauce with mushrooms. And also bruschetta with fresh tomatoes from the garden.

I was asked on facebook for the recipe, and I’m horrible with recipes so I just explained what I did in this Facebook post.

tomatoes from the yard that were made into sauce!

Whole wheat bread and blackberry-strawberry jam, two great things that got great together.

Some graffiti from the guest cave. Up the witchy punx!

year of houseguests!

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.