We recently had an email chat with How & Why author Matte Resist about his new book, the definition of “work,” and building a DIY time machine!

Q: How did the book come about? What was the genesis of the thing?

A: The motivation of the book was Joe asking me if I’d like to do the follow up for Making Stuff and Doing Things, but really I’d been thinking about doing a DIY book for a long time. I’d written a lot of DIY plans for my zine (Resist), some of which were used in Making Stuff and Doing Things and I had started compiling other plans and ideas for a future book. Most of them centered around bicycle repair and modification. After How to Rock & Roll and Chainbreaker came out, I felt that the bicycle repair ground had been pretty well covered so a lot of the articles that I had actually written and illustrated were scrapped and I started writing about other projects I was doing. Some of the projects were things I wanted to do but hadn’t found time or motivation to do until I was writing a book.

Q: Have you had much feedback from people who’ve completed the projects?

A: I’ve gotten some feedback from the bike trailer plans which were included in Resist #46. All of it has been positive except for one person who said it was too heavy. Very little of the rest has seen print before now, at least not in its current form, so there’s been little time for feedback. I will say that since I’ve started writing about gardening that is by far the topic I receive the most questions about. I always try to share what I know but usually wish that I knew more and could offer more information.  I read a quote once that sums it up pretty well, something to the effect of “I’m a very old man, but a very young gardener.”  Taming nature is no easy task and even after a lifetime of trying there’s still a lot to learn! Mostly I’ve heard that the plans are easy to follow and that the illustrations usually answer any questions that come up, which is exactly what I was shooting for!

Q: If a really young kid—say 10 or 12—asked you to define the concept of DIY—your own personal version of it—in one sentence what would you say?

A: It’s about learning to do things for yourself instead of always buying everything you need from the store.

Q: If you built a time machine and went back to meet your great-great-great grandfather and he asked you to define “happiness” in one sentence what would you say?

A: I’d say, “Grandpa, you know as well as I that happiness is about loving and being loved.”

Q: If your first boss of your first-ever job asked you to define the word “work” in one sentence what would you say?

A: Then or now? (and what’s with all this once sentence crap? I’m a storyteller not a poet!) At 15 years old I probably would have said, “It’s a necessary evil.”  Now? Maybe I’d say, “It’s the act of being productive, and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with a job.”

Q: If an interstellar spaceship landed in your backyard and an alien climbed out and asked you to define your planet in one sentence what would you say?

A: It’s on the brink of a major upheaval which will either lead to total collapse or a resurgence of simple living.

Word Association Time!
1 Bike – ride
2 Tree – house
3 Punk – ethics
4 America – for sale
5 Publish- self

Q: Finally, do you have any new projects coming up?
A: Yes, I have two major upcoming projects but they’re both top secret! Other than those, I’m hoping to finish up some work on our basement.  I’ve been meaning to install a bathroom for a few years and I think I’m actually going to do that this year.  We’ve also been thinking about having a small home recording studio which would double as a spare bedroom. I’m working on an improved sidecar design and a couple trailer designs for very specialized purposes. I have MANY more things I want to try with musical instrument building. (Percussion and amp building are on my mind right now.) Also, I’m building a time machine so I can go back to meet my great-great-great grandfather and ask him to define “happiness” in one sentence. I just hope I don’t mess up the space-time continuum in the process.

Order out How & Why right here.

For the sake of transparency and to operate under the same requirements of a 501c3, we will continue to publish our financial reports.

2010 Income $383,024.12 (increased $70,000 from last year) 

Expenses

=========

Total staff wages (divided between Nate, Jessie, Rio, Adam, Joe, Matt, Rio, Sparky, Steven, Dylan, and Chris) $47,298.74. (Paying an average annual wage of $4,729.87) (50% decrease!, 12% of budget))

Printing Bills $57,587.66 (a 26% decrease, 14.8% of budget)

Shipping $69,352.77 (73% increase!, 17.9% of budget)

Publishers and distributors $129,365.09 (339% increase, 33.5% of budget)

Zines bought from makers $24,315.73 (35% decrease, 6.2% of budget) 

Rent $14,480 (3.6% of budget)

Utilities, insurance, phone, office supplies, etc $6,682.77 (1.7% of budget)

Royalties to authors $20,256 (47% increase!, 5.2% of budget))

Travel $4,881 (1.2% of budget)

Catalog Printing $3,658.93 (.9% of budget)

Donations $4,975 

Staff Healthcare $3,576 (.9% of budget)

Advertising $4,410.52 (1% of budget)

=================

Total Expenses $385,865.21

Total $-7,815.47 (loss) 

We’ve made two significant changes to our operation—we will no longer be publishing as many books and we will have stronger requirements for the zines that we distribute. The former change was decided at our annual meeting in May of 2010, but due to the weight of our existing release schedule, it took some time to reach that point. 

In the future we will focus primarily on publishing instructional DIY books and distributing DIY themed, politically powerful, and popular zines. 

Distributed zines will be required to sell at least 40 copies per issue per year in order to remain in the catalog. Because we have such an extensive zine catalog and pay zinemakers before the zines have sold, we end up buying a lot of zines that sadly live their lives in the packing room, not being read.

We think that with these changes we should be back on our feet by the end of the year and able to pay the zinemakers, ourselves, and our bills. 

In the short term, our finances are in dire straits. We are working hard to pay off bills from December. If you are able to donate, it would be an excellent time. We’ve recently took on a lot of new items in the catalog and published the new How and Why and Edible Secrets books. After hopes that our holiday sales would cover

more of these expenses, it seems we’ve bit off a bit more than we can chew. The writing has always been on the wall that there isn’t much money in this kind of work. 

We have decided to operate as not-for-profit without being a 501c3, because, to an extent, it allows us to put our mission ahead of our finances without being managed by an outside board of directors. Being a collectively-run publisher and distributor of zines and related work is important to us, and as always, Microcosm strives to add credibility to zine writers and their ethics, teach self empowerment, show hidden history, and nurture people’s creative side! 

We are currently accepting donations:

You can send paypal donations to 

orders@microcosmpublishing.com You could call with a credit card donation. (503) 232-3666. Checks can go to Microcosm 636 SE 11th Ave. Portland, OR 97214. Please specify it’s a donation with your check so we don’t think we need to mail you something beyond our eternal gratitude.

But here’s to many more years of successful support of zine makers, distribution of radical literature, and giving people access to information—in print—that they is difficult to come by. 

All orders are also extra appreciated right now.

Thanks for all of the years of support!

-Microcosm

(Illustration by Rio Safari)

We have a quick update on our ongoing campaign wherein folks trade in Kindles for their price in books. Here’s the bounty scored by a zine lover in NYC when she traded her Kindle in!

ABOUT THE KINDLE EXCHANGE: Do you love print? Do you still read books? Did you get a Kindle for Christmas? Do you want to trade in your soulless faux-literary technology for its worth in good old fashioned books? Well, friends, Microcosm Publishing’s got your back! Beginning RIGHT NOW you can bring in your Christmas Kindle to the Microcosm store in Portland (636 SE 11th) and trade it in for its worth in new or used books and zines! That’s right! Why let fad technology kill print when you can take a stand and fill up your shelves in the process. (Don’t worry, we won’t tell your parents.) And make sure to bring a friend to help you carry all your loot; most of the store’s books are priced in the $2-$6 range so a $139-$189 trade-in (note: going retail for the Kindle at Amazon’s site) you might be carrying your books out in a fleet of wheelbarrows!

On Amazon’s Kindle page you’ll be able to read glowing endorsements like the following, “”My first impression of Kindle’s screen was: ‘That’s a screen?! It doesn’t look like a screen.’… It looks like a book page, only perfect. No grain or pulp.”—Jeremy.”

Well, you know what, Jeremy? We love the and grain and pulp. Long live the grain and pulp! Long live the PAGE.

Thanks for helping to keep print alive!

Microcosm Publishing book and zine store
636 SE 11th
Portland, Or 97214
11am-7pm, Seven days a week
503-232-3666
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Microcosm-hQ-Store/131220623559507

(illustration by Rio Safari) 

Do you love print? Do you still read books? Did you get a Kindle for Christmas? Do you want to trade in your soulless faux-literary technology for its worth in good old fashioned books? Well, friends, Microcosm Publishing’s got your back! Beginning RIGHT NOW you can bring in your Christmas Kindle to the Microcosm store in Portland (636 SE 11th) and trade it in for its worth in new or used books and zines! That’s right! Why let fad technology kill print when you can take a stand and fill up your shelves in the process. (Don’t worry, we won’t tell your parents.) And make sure to bring a friend to help you carry all your loot; most of the store’s books are priced in the $2-$6 range so a $139-$189 trade-in (note: going retail for the Kindle at Amazon’s site) you might be carrying your books out in a fleet of wheelbarrows!

On Amazon’s Kindle page you’ll be able to read glowing endorsements like the following, “”My first impression of Kindle’s screen was: ‘That’s a screen?! It doesn’t look like a screen.’… It looks like a book page, only perfect. No grain or pulp.”—Jeremy.”

Well, you know what, Jeremy? We love the and grain and pulp. Long live the grain and pulp! Long live the PAGE.

Thanks for helping to keep print alive!

Microcosm Publishing book and zine store
2752 N Williams Ave
Portland, Or 97227
11am-7pm, Seven days a week
503-232-3666
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Microcosm-hQ-Store/131220623559507

Since opening doors in August 2008, the Microcosm zine and book store has moved twice to larger locations. In an age when out-of-touch doomsayers are hoping to drive the final nail in the print media coffin, Microcosm continues to prove that people still buy books and zines and that running a DIY bookstore (and publishing books) in this day and age isn’t a damned proposition. The new store location is in the massive 636 SE 11th building shared with likeminded folks Eberhardt Press and Printed Matter (and a skateramp.) The store is open seven days a week and features a full scale reading area and coffee counter. Check with http://www.micrcosmpublishing.com for regular author signings, readings, and potlucks!

What do top-secret CIA assassination plots, Black Panther arrests, and Reaganomics have in common? Food, of course! Michael Hoerger and Mia Partlow collect, contextualize and graphically narrate declassified government documents with food as a theme! Over 500,000 declassified memos, debriefings and transcripts were combed to uncover some of the most important and iconic people and narratives from US history. Providing a voyeuristic insight into the US government, these documents are like reality TV for politicos and foodies: Assassinations by milkshake, subliminal popcorn cravings, Reagan’s love of hydroponics, and what could be Fred Hampton’s most radical action—giving ice cream to small children. Illustrated throughout by Nate Powell.

Keep tabs on the regularly updated Edible Secrets blog right here. And get a copy of the book here!

Q: For anyone who hasn’t gotten a chance to read the book give us a little overview. What can people expect?
MH: An entertaining introduction to government secrecy and radical US history…starring food. Assassination by milkshake, a communist Jell-O box, subliminal popcorn cravings. It’s political voyeurism for foodies! Through food and declassified documents we’ve graphically narrated histories of the Black Panther Party, the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Fidel Castro and Cuba, US government experiments on humans, globalization, and more.

MP: We tried very hard to make the book accessible and interesting to people of all ilks. There are graphics with information like “Top Five CIA Pranks on Fidel Castro,” which gives a little overview of the five most ridiculous assassination attempts/attempts to annoy Castro, or a graphic depicting all of the interactions the Black Panthers had with the police from 1968-1969 (hint: there were a lot). And there are also essays for people who want to delve a little deeper, which give a history of the documents and a little background that explains how that document came to be–for example, why did the US government fund a study on subliminal messaging, or how did Reagan come to be sitting in a room talking about hydroponic lettuce? Those questions get us into discussions of experiments with mind control and the US legacy of creating better torturers, and discussions of food subsidies and how the world food supply is propped up in order to keep capitalism legitimate. Like I said, something for everybody!

Q: How did you guys get a hold of the documents you used? How long did it take you to collect them all?
MH: The documents were casually collected over many years.  The first document I found by mistake.  Late one night I was searching a computer database of declassified CIA documents and, in a moment of boredom, decided to search for Jello Biafra of the punk band the Dead Kennedys.  No results came up for Biafra (though I’m sure he has quite the FBI file out there somewhere), but the document featured in the book about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the notorious Jell-O box popped up.

The documents were collected over a period of 5 years from library collections and online databases. If you’re interested in declassified documents, you should start by asking your local librarian for help finding them. And in the book we include a sample Freedom of Information Act Request.  Before becoming a book, Edible Secrets was a portable art installation of the documents (enlarged and screen-printed), historical artifacts, dioramas, art, and even featured an audio tour at one point.

Q: The super awesome Nate Powell does the illustrations for this one. How was it working with him?
MH: Nate Powell and I were roommates for many years, including when Edible Secrets was conceived of.  So it was great to work with Nate, as he was the primary sounding board for all things Edible Secrets.  And Nate is an illustrating genius, and produced perfect illustrations for each chapter and a beautiful cover.  There were a couple that didn’t make it into the book; maybe we’ll put those up someday.

MP: Nate is amazing! Besides being an awesome illustrator with the power to tell an entire story in a single pen-stroke, he is a super nice person with a wonderful creative energy.

Q: What do you think of this whole WikiLeaks thing?
MP: One of the more interesting things happening right now connected to WikiLeaks is the dialogue occurring around the issue of Julian Assange (the face of WikiLeaks) and sexual assault. There have been some good discussions in the media about it. As writers we feel it is important to confront these issues head on. When sexual assault victims are used as pawns, all victims and survivors ultimately lose, because the rhetoric around assault is clouded with other objectives. 

MH: As for the (most recent) leaks themselves, they are intriguing.  The most recent WikiLeak, dubbed Cablegate, is a data dump of 200,000+ state department cables; essentially internal memos from US embassies abroad.  The documents released so far (only 1% of the documents are available to the public) do not provide any earth-shattering revelations, but are interesting for the level of candor in the narrative voices.  They read more like emails between friends -kinda evil, profit-hungry friends- than official US documents or declarations.

PS, be on the lookout for our Gastronomical Guide to Cablegate, as we could not resist the temptation of using the food filter on Wikileaks: socialist sandwiches, Chinese licorice machine parts, and more government favors for Coca-Cola.

Q: What’s next for you guys? You have an event coming up soon. Tell us a little about that…
MH: Right now we are just trying to get the book out there.  On January 15th we’ll be doing a presentation on the book at Bluestockings in New York City.  After that we hope to do some events in the Midwest and maybe attend some book fairs.

As for next projects, we are tossing some ideas around: a history of plane hijackings before 9/11, a resource guide for prison abolition, and potentially a memoir/cultural history of asthma if Mia ever finishes that quilt she’s been working on.

Q: Finally, give us your top five favorite foods…
MH: beets, pizza, cupcakes, brussels sprouts, ice cream
MP: lentils, soup of almost any kind, sourpatch kids (corporate vegan deliciousness), vegan wings with homemade buffalo sauce and vegan ranch dressing, and ice cream.

Hey Portland!

The Microcosm Publishing zine store is throwing a book reading for author Andrej Grubacic on December 11^th, at 7pm! Grubacic is in town for the Portland Anarchist Bookfair happening on the same day and will be reading selections from his new book on PM Press, Don’t Mourn, Balkanize! Essays After Yugoslavia!

From PM Press: “Grubacic is a dissident from the Balkans. A radical historian and sociologist, he is the co-author of Wobblies and Zapatistas and editor of The Staughton Lynd Reader. A fellow traveler of Zapatista-inspired direct action movements, in particular Peoples’ Global Action, and a co-founder of Global Balkans Network and Balkan Z Magazine, he is a visiting professor of sociology at the University of San Francisco.”

Also, the Microcosm store now has a full-scale coffee counter courtesy of Currier Coffee Roasters! (http://www.couriercoffeeroasters.com/ ). Coffee is $1.50 for 12 oz cups, or $2 for 20 oz. The beans are ground in a hand-crank press and the coffee is French pressed. Zines and coffee go hand in hand and now folks that come to our readings can have a piping hot beverage just in time for the pre-winter!

Microcosm has CAWFEE! from Cantankerous Titles on Vimeo.

HARD INFO

Andrej Grubacic reading Don’t Mourn, Balkanize! Essays After Yugoslavia!

December 11^th, 7pm, free

Microcosm Publishing zine and book store

636 SE 11^th

Portland, OR

97214

www.microcosmpublishing.com

ABOUT DON’T MOURN, BALKANIZE! ESSAYS AFTER YUGOSLAVIA

Don’t Mourn, Balkanize! Is the first book written from the radical left perspective on the topic of Yugoslav space after the dismantling of the country. In this collection of essays, commentaries and interviews, written between 2002 and 2010, Andrej Grubacic speaks about the politics of balkanization—about the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, neoliberal structural adjustment, humanitarian intervention, supervised independence of Kosovo, occupation of Bosnia, and other episodes of Power which he situates in the long historical context of colonialism, conquest and intervention.

But he also tells the story of the balkanization of politics, of the Balkans seen from below. A space of bogumils—those medieval heretics who fought against Crusades and churches—and a place of anti-Ottoman resistance; a home to hajduks and klefti, pirates and rebels; a refuge of feminists and socialists, of anti-fascists and partisans; of new social movements of occupied and recovered factories; a place of dreamers of all sorts struggling both against provincial “peninsularity” as well as against occupations, foreign interventions and that process which is now, in a strange inversion of history, often described by that fashionable term, “balkanization.”

For Grubacic, political activist and radical sociologist, Yugoslavia was never just a country—it was an idea. Like the Balkans itself, it was a project of inter-ethnic co-existence, a trans-ethnic and pluricultural space of many diverse worlds. Political ideas of inter-ethnic cooperation and mutual aid as we had known them in Yugoslavia were destroyed by the beginning of the 1990s—disappeared in the combined madness of ethno-nationalist hysteria and humanitarian imperialism. This remarkable collection chronicles political experiences of the author who is himself a Yugoslav, a man without a country; but also, as an anarchist, a man without a state. This book is an important reading for those on the Left who are struggling to understand the intertwined legacy of inter-ethnic conflict and inter-ethnic solidarity in contemporary, post-Yugoslav history.

Praise:

“These thoughtful essays offer us a vivid picture of the Balkans experience from the inside, with its richness and complexity, tragedy and hope, and lessons from which we can all draw inspiration and insight.”
—Noam Chomsky, MIT

“The history of Yugoslavia is of global relevance, and there’s no one better placed to reveal, share, and analyse it than Andrej Grubacic. From the struggle of the Roma to the liberating possibilities of ‘federalism from below,’ this collection of essays is required and radical reading.”
—Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved

“This book of essays shows a deep grasp of Yugoslav history and social theory. It is a groundbreaking book, representing a bold departure from existing ideas, and an imaginative view to how a just society in the Balkans might be constructed.”
—Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

“I cannot think of another work that even tries to accomplish what Andrej Grubacic has artfully undertaken in this volume. Don’t Mourn, Balkanize! is the first radical account of Yugoslav history after Yugoslavia, surveying this complex history with imagination and insight. Grubacic’s book provides essential information and perspective for all those interested in the recent history of this part of the world.”
—Michael Albert, author of Parecon

“Andrej Grubacic is a rare genuine authority on the recent history and politics of the Balkans. I have known him for a decade, have followed and read his work with profit, and corresponded with him on matters which I found difficult in doing my own writing in this field.”
—Edward S. Herman Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Product Details:
Author: Andrej Grubacic
Introduction by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-60486-302-4
Published: November 2010
Format: Paperback
Size: 8 by 5
Page count: 272
Subjects: History-Yugoslavia, Politics

For this, the ongoing Meet Microcosm blog series, we talk to Bloomington collective member Dylan GW. So without further adieu meet Dylan!

Q: What kind of stuff are you doing outside of Microcosm?

A: Well, I’m just getting adjusted to life in Bloomington again. I grew up here, but I went to college in St. Paul, Minnesota for a year. I moved back here during the summer. It was sort of an accident, but I’m happy with it. College was crazy! It was nothing like American Pie, but it was a weird adventure. I lived in dorm with about 100 other freshmen, and they were largely the only people I interacted with the whole time I was there. My college was about the same size as my high school, and it did kind of feel like living in a high school. It was my first time really living in a big city and my first time living in a place where my accent was considered “southern” by a lot of people I met. The winter was long and cold. I watched a lot of movies and read a lot of zines. The whole thing freaked me out. I’m glad to be home.

More recently I’ve been busy getting set up here. I recently moved into a new house. I’ve kept all my stuff in a couple duffel bags for the last 6 months and it was really nice to finally unpack. I’ve started doing creative projects again, which is really exciting. Some housemates and I started a band, the first band I’ve ever been in and I’ve just finished working on my first zine. I’m stoked!

I have a few hobbies. I read for pleasure. I play a lot of Tetris. That may not seem like a hobby to you, but when you’ve dedicated as much of your precious time here on earth to Tetris as I have, it becomes a hobby. I play games on the computer, board and role-playing varieties. A major interest of mine is ravioli and other stuffed pastas. I am very interested in finding new things to put in pasta. What else could one fill a ravioli with? I don’t know, but I’d like to find out.

Q: What’s your favorite zine, and why?

A: Let me just start this off by saying that it’s so hard to pick a favorite zine! There are so many great zines out there. But if I have to pick a favorite, I’ll pick Nuns I’ve Known by Prunella Vulgaris. Nuns I’ve Known was one of the first zines that I ever read. It’s short, it’s well written and it has a nice hand made cover–you can tell that the author really put time into it. It’s about a very specific topic, it’s literally a list of nuns that the author has known, yet it’s super interesting to read. To me, it’s a perfect example of what makes the zine medium unique: information or writing with merit that would never otherwise get published that, thanks to zine culture, gets distributed to a large audience.

Q: If you had to evacuate your home, what are the five things you’d take with you if you could only take five?

A: Is it assumed that I’m wearing pants? I only wear pants when I absolutely have to so I probably wouldn’t be wearing them when the hypothetical emergency occurred. So I’d need to take them as one of the five items. The first item, probably. Then I’d take my laptop. It contains my tunes, my jams and my video games, so it’s pretty crucial. I’d take a copy of God Bless You Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut–it’s my favorite book. Then my stuffed penguin, Pengi. Finally, I’d need a light jacket. It’s getting pretty chilly out there.

Word Association
1) Explosion.
Volcanic!
2) Realism.
Keepin’ it
3) Television.
Star Trek!
4) Fun.
I’m against it.
5) American.
John Cougar Mellencamp

Q: You’re based out of the Bloomington office. What’s your idea of a good day in Bloomington?

A: It would be late May or early June–The college students are gone. The town is peaceful. Sleep in late, but not too late. Walk into town to get some coffee. Read or play Tetris in the coffee shop until your friends also show up at the coffee shop, which they will. It’s pretty much guaranteed. If it’s warm enough, get a group together and go swimming in the limestone quarries or in Lake Monroe. Then go eat some pizza before going to whatever awesome thing is going on that night starts. Remember to stay up late.

Q: What are your five favorite things about Bloomington? As well as the five things you like the least…

Likes:
1 I love the size of the town. I can walk or bike to anywhere I would ever want to go.
2 Bloomington has everything that a big city has, pretty much. Except for an Ikea.
3 Bloomington has a great music scene, Boxcar Books, an awesome radical book store and a tight-knit, friendly punk/radical community.
4 The food! Bloomington has such good food! We have so many different kinds of ethnic restaurants and so many different choices when it comes to pizza. Disclaimer: We do have an Italian food problem here.
5 It’s beautiful here! Lots and lots of trees, cool old limestone buildings and cute little houses (with cheap rent).

Dislikes:
1 Every fall, 40,000 morons move here and spend all their free time drinking, puking and breaking things.
2 Bloomington is so small that you can’t really leave your house without seeing someone you know. It can be a problem if you sometimes don’t feel like talking to people.
3 In Indiana, under 21 folks can’t go in bars at all. Which means that every show in a bar is 21+. That’s a lot of shows.
4 It’s really tough to get jobs in Bloomington. With all the college students, competition for even minimum-wage jobs is pretty stiff.
5 For some reason, developers keep building gigantic ugly high-rises here. It seems like a bad idea, like there aren’t enough people to fill them because they usually sit half empty. They must turn a profit, though, because more keep getting built!

Q: Finally, what do you do for Microcosm day in, day out?

A: Well my specific job duty is shipping–I put labels on all of the packages, fill out customs forms and email customers if there is a problem with their order. I also pack orders–all of us do that in Bloomington. If there’s time left over in the day after packing and shipping I do whatever needs to get done, usually organizing, stapling zines or proofreading new stuff.

Dear NYC friends,

In celebration of our new book, the Zinester’s Guide to NYC, St. Mark’s Bookshop is helping us host a “Zine-vasion” zine party. Ayun Halliday, editor of the Zinester’s Guide to NYC, will be on hand with a select crew of the book’s contributors for zine readings, a Q&A, and an open consignment session. (Bring three copies of your zine if you’d like St. Mark’s Bookshop to sell it on a consignment basis.)

Q&A discussion topics include;
How do you make a zine?
Why do you make a zine?
How did you get into zine-making in the first place?
What other zines do you read?
Where can I get my zine photocopied?
How are zines distributed?
Where are zines reviewed?
Where can you go to buy zines?
How do you pronounce “zine”?
And how can I find out more?

The evening’s presenters include Ayun Halliday (The Zinester’s Guide to NYC, The East Village Inky zine), Andria Alefhi (We’ll Never Have Paris zine), Melissa Bastian (Anywhere I Lay My Head), Leslie Henkel (aka “Dear Drunk Girl” of The Tight Pantsy Drew Mysteries), Josh Saitz (Negative Capability), and Esther Smith (Purgatory Pie Press.)

Come say Hey!