ZiNetwork Survey: Zine Interest Group for Kentucky & Appalachia

Dear Regional Zinesters & Other DIYers: 

I am honored to announce the launch of a regional “ZiNetwork” (or zine interest group) to connect maker-activists in Kentucky and Appalachia with support from a 2023 Kentucky Foundation for Women Art Meets Activism Grant and community partner Sarabande Books. This project builds upon existing but geographically dispersed zine producers, activities, and resources to establish formal opportunities for regional feminist zine-related networking, skill-sharing, and artmaking. 

The first phase of this project is a survey to gather contacts and feedback from people who want to connect and collaborate with other zinesters in the region. Please complete and/or share this survey with anybody in/from the region who is involved in DIY publishing: https://bit.ly/KY-Appal-ZiNetwork-Survey.

I look forward to learning more about different folks' zine-related interests and experience in Kentucky and Central Appalachia as well as sharing ongoing developments. The ZiNetwork is part of a larger participatory creative scholar-activist project that I will share more about soon. 

Thanks for helping connect the regional zine threads . . . 

Be Kind, Be Kin, 

*Dr. AnthroBone

P.S. Here is a brief intro to my personal zine interest/experience and why I'm working on this project:

I am a native Kentuckian with deep Appalachian roots and a Generation-X zinester with an interest in regional zine-related practices, productions, and communities. I learned about and began producing zines in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a high school student in a rural community. I continue engaging with this activist medium through zine-related artwork, research, and education. 

 

My dissertation fieldwork included encounters with zine-making workshops hosted by the Appalachian Media Institute (Appalshop) in Whitesburg, Kentucky and zine projects focusing on the regional history and practice of movement-building, local food, and field guides at High Rocks Educational Corporation in West Virginia. There are also substantial zine collections and strong representation of contemporary zine cultures at my undergraduate and graduate alma maters Berea College, Harvard University, and the University of Kentucky. I have included zines in graphic novel workshops for teaching artist residencies in public schools, and I recently presented a Zine Lunch! Virtual Workshop on “Place-Based Cultural Mapping Zines." (I also highly recommend checking out Sarabande Books' extensive archive of online workshops!)