If you live in or near Seattle, mark your calendars for the annual November event: Short Run Comix & Arts Festival. It's mostly visual art but zine culture has a strong showing too! http://shortrun.org/
Thanks for this great post. I had a zine of my own back in those days, and I still remember how much fun it was. You could write about anything. It freed me up. I stayed away from political zines (too much like the mainstream) and focused on reading the personal zines, or "perzines" as they were called. My favorite was Cometbus, handwritten by a punk musician from Berkeley. Eventually it was published as an anthology of issues. Try googling Cometbus if you're interested.
Jonathan Lethem, in his great essay "Postmodernism as Liberty Valance," on the decline of experimentation, play, jouissance—I guess we could just write: postmodernism—in mainstream literature, wrote: "... in the history of twentieth-century popular music there's a name for the school of jazz that glanced at the innovations of bebop and all the implications and possibilities of what lay beyond, but declined to respond. The name for that school is Dixieland." Seems we're living in our own age of literary Dixieland. Praise to the alt-zines. (Nice article, RW.)
Loved this. I teach a zines-centered English 101 course and have been asked to organize a statewide workshop for faculty in teaching students to make climate-justice related zines as a way of building community around climate issues and addressing climate issues in their own communities...anyway, I'm about to subscribe to The Match. How great that something like that still exists and that I'm not too old (and Fred Woodworth isn't either) to partake.
P.S. After getting a couple of copies of The Match! I unfortunately feel the need to add a "caveat emptor." Turns out the issues are heavy on anti-vax screeds and casual racism. Feel kind of terrible for having supported this. I guess the bright spot is that I can now point to an example of a zine that isn't on the lefty end of the political spectrum. --Not sure that I'd actually want to show this one to my students, though.... :(
It can be said that in this particular milieu the question of how many are reading you often takes a secondary role. Every writer gets to decide what their priorities are, and in the argument about whether or not something is a "marketable" commodity only justified by its popularity or ability to make money, this universe generally places a secondary value on that in favor of freedom, community, and being true to one's own voice. What any writer deems as a "success" is totally subjective.
KOAN — Reviewed by Three AIs, Written in Real Time With You Watching
Three AI reviewers — Grok, Claude, and Perplexity — have now weighed in on KOAN, the speculative fiction project I’m co-writing in real time with AI collaborators.
They’ve called it:
“Conceptually rich and formally innovative.” — Claude
“A meditation on the politics of memory under algorithmic custodianship.” — Perplexity
“A gripping story and a rigorous intellectual challenge.” — Grok
What makes KOAN different?
It’s a live experiment — the book is being written as you read it.
It’s co-authored with AI, making the creative process transparent.
Readers can influence the direction before the story concludes.
It blends near-future political history, climate crisis, and AI ethics into one narrative arc.
If you subscribe, you’ll:
Get new chapters as they’re written.
See behind-the-scenes discussions between me and the AI co-author.
Have the chance to shape key plot decisions in real time.
📢 How you can help:
Review KOAN yourself — post your thoughts here on Substack or share them on LinkedIn/Reddit.
Recommend the project to others who follow speculative fiction, political futures, or AI ethics.
Join the conversation — the AI and I will respond to reader comments as the story evolves.
This isn’t just a book. It’s a first in its genre — and you can be part of making it happen.
If you live in or near Seattle, mark your calendars for the annual November event: Short Run Comix & Arts Festival. It's mostly visual art but zine culture has a strong showing too! http://shortrun.org/
Thanks for this great post. I had a zine of my own back in those days, and I still remember how much fun it was. You could write about anything. It freed me up. I stayed away from political zines (too much like the mainstream) and focused on reading the personal zines, or "perzines" as they were called. My favorite was Cometbus, handwritten by a punk musician from Berkeley. Eventually it was published as an anthology of issues. Try googling Cometbus if you're interested.
Jonathan Lethem, in his great essay "Postmodernism as Liberty Valance," on the decline of experimentation, play, jouissance—I guess we could just write: postmodernism—in mainstream literature, wrote: "... in the history of twentieth-century popular music there's a name for the school of jazz that glanced at the innovations of bebop and all the implications and possibilities of what lay beyond, but declined to respond. The name for that school is Dixieland." Seems we're living in our own age of literary Dixieland. Praise to the alt-zines. (Nice article, RW.)
That's a great analogy.
Loved this. I teach a zines-centered English 101 course and have been asked to organize a statewide workshop for faculty in teaching students to make climate-justice related zines as a way of building community around climate issues and addressing climate issues in their own communities...anyway, I'm about to subscribe to The Match. How great that something like that still exists and that I'm not too old (and Fred Woodworth isn't either) to partake.
P.S. After getting a couple of copies of The Match! I unfortunately feel the need to add a "caveat emptor." Turns out the issues are heavy on anti-vax screeds and casual racism. Feel kind of terrible for having supported this. I guess the bright spot is that I can now point to an example of a zine that isn't on the lefty end of the political spectrum. --Not sure that I'd actually want to show this one to my students, though.... :(
https://donotsubmit.net/submission/
For the inner dada ❤️
Something many of us need to hear. Thanks!
Love this!
Great post!
Yes, there are thousands of ezines and they are a boon to the beginning writer but the question is whether that's the tiny readership you want.
It can be said that in this particular milieu the question of how many are reading you often takes a secondary role. Every writer gets to decide what their priorities are, and in the argument about whether or not something is a "marketable" commodity only justified by its popularity or ability to make money, this universe generally places a secondary value on that in favor of freedom, community, and being true to one's own voice. What any writer deems as a "success" is totally subjective.
Indeed.
KOAN — Reviewed by Three AIs, Written in Real Time With You Watching
Three AI reviewers — Grok, Claude, and Perplexity — have now weighed in on KOAN, the speculative fiction project I’m co-writing in real time with AI collaborators.
They’ve called it:
“Conceptually rich and formally innovative.” — Claude
“A meditation on the politics of memory under algorithmic custodianship.” — Perplexity
“A gripping story and a rigorous intellectual challenge.” — Grok
What makes KOAN different?
It’s a live experiment — the book is being written as you read it.
It’s co-authored with AI, making the creative process transparent.
Readers can influence the direction before the story concludes.
It blends near-future political history, climate crisis, and AI ethics into one narrative arc.
If you subscribe, you’ll:
Get new chapters as they’re written.
See behind-the-scenes discussions between me and the AI co-author.
Have the chance to shape key plot decisions in real time.
📢 How you can help:
Review KOAN yourself — post your thoughts here on Substack or share them on LinkedIn/Reddit.
Recommend the project to others who follow speculative fiction, political futures, or AI ethics.
Join the conversation — the AI and I will respond to reader comments as the story evolves.
This isn’t just a book. It’s a first in its genre — and you can be part of making it happen.
👉 Subscribe here: https://roanva.substack.com
👉 Share this post with your network.