Phoenix area literaries and creatives came together in an inclusive space for zinesters to share self-published work and connect at the third annual PHX Zine Fest, Sunday.
The festival, hosted at the Unexpected Art Gallery, continues to grow in popularity and vendors. This year the vendor list has over 75 different zines. The annual festival gives vendors and zine enthusiasts a space to sell, buy, explore and listen to literary panels.
A zine is a DIY magazine that can include a wide variety of content such as poetry, photography, collages, and educational topics. Zinesters are the creators.
The fest was originally created to help artists become inspired and a part of something outside of their own galleries according to Charissa Lucille, the organizer.
Lucille started the fest after realizing the Phoenix area was one of the few major cities in the U.S. that did not have a zine festival. Lucille, along with five other organizers, decided to create the PHX Zine Fest to help other artists get inspired and become a part of something outside their galleries.
One of the vendors in attendance was Rinky Dink Press, founded by Rosemarie Dombrowski, the inaugural Phoenix poet laureate and an Arizona State University professor.
“It’s not just about how art gets made, it’s about how art gets distributed,” Dombrowski said. “I want (people) to be unafraid of book festivals, I want to say, ‘Be unafraid of literary festivals’ because there is a space for all of us at literary festivals as well.
She added, cross-pollination is important.
“The zine community is amazing, it’s inclusive, it’s safe, but we can’t be afraid of those other spaces where words exist,” she said. “I think our words and our art deserve to be there as well.”
The PHX Zine Fest also hosted a series of featured panel discussions. Each included a different topic for the hour. The first panel discussed what it’s like to be invisible in the LGBTQ community, and how each member of the panel uses their art as a way to connect with others in the community.
One of the panelists, Sarah Evins, said she struggled with finding her identity for a long time. The zine community allowed her to express herself through writing poetry.
“I am trying to express multiple sides of my personality, I also have aspects of mental health covered in my poetry,” Evins said. “It’s been nice to feel like I can have an agency and create my identity, rather than being passive and hoping other people will kind of see me.”
Nico Wilkinson, who runs Prickly Pear Printing, spoke about the significance of radical literary art and the fears of modern life.
“I know that for me, throughout my evolution as an artist and an activist, I got very, very overwhelmed and afraid about whether I could change the world,” Wilkinson said. “I think it’s taken a long time for me to realize that there are some days where all we’re going to do is survive and we’re going to do whatever we can to survive that day and sometimes that’s enough, and sometimes there will be days where we’re going to survive and then we’re going to help our friend survive.”
For Lucille, the inclusiveness of the festival is important. She started creating zines in 2014, and came out as queer around this time. She felt as though she did not have a community with whom she could identify. Lucille said the zine community helped her feel included for the first time in her life.
Lucille said she felt invisible at a zine festival in California. She said there was an interview where the interviewers were looking for other queer people and the interviewer turned to her and said that she needed to cut her hair if she wanted to be seen.
“I was offended and saddened because, I mean, this is me and I can’t change anything else about me to fit into what queer looks like because it doesn’t have a box, we’re all around you,” Lucille said. “My pronouns are ‘she’ and ‘her’ and ‘they’ and ‘them’. I think this conversation’s really important, especially in Phoenix where we have a lot of systems of oppression.”
Lucille hopes to continue Zine Fest, as well as inspire people to create their own zines and feel included by possibly tabling for them next year.
For questions, contact the reporter at ahmirand@asu.edu
