A Few More Zines You Need to Read

A year ago, I published a zine roundup to celebrate Microfascination’s second anniversary. Zines were an incredible boon for my mental health and creativity during the pandemic, and I wanted to give back to the creators who’d inspired me during that time by spreading the word about some favorites.

Turns out that writing about something was yet again a way to invite more of that thing into my life! In the past year I’ve attended zine fests and meetups, pitched and hosted my first zine workshop, made new friends through the zine community, and now, the big news:

I’m sharing my own zines!

Four of my zines are now available and I’m looking forward to sharing more in the future. I liked the idea of offering an experience — something you get to print and fold yourself. (Easy as pie with the aid of a short YouTube how-to, and if you don’t have a printer at home I bet your local library can help!)

Here’s a quick rundown:

• An Exercise in Creative Gratitude: This zine is an invitation to thank a creator who changed your life. The prompts walk you through a personal meditation on a favorite piece of art/media and what you might say to its creator in your note of appreciation.

• What Will You Write Today?: This zine is a brainstorming tool to help writers get started on a specific writing project. I developed this one to banish the intimidation of the blank page!

• Radio Church: This zine is a guide to an auditory adventure; all you need is a radio. I actually made this one as a companion to the Microfascination I wrote back in July!

• Pocket Viewfinder: This zine is a tool for looking at the world more closely. You cut a hole through the middle of the zine and then follow the visual prompts while peering through the small window you’ve created.

Each of these four are available at a name-your-price option. When I say “name your price,” I mean it; you can download for free, if you want. But if you have the resources to throw a couple bucks my way to help support my creative work, that means a lot to me!

Now as I’ve said before, zines make perfect holiday gifts. So without further ado, here are a few favorites that I discovered this year — call it the Microfascination Holiday Gift Guide. Support an independent creator and check people off your gift list!

For years I’ve been obsessed with the idea of making art out of attempts, failures, and incomplete works, so I was the target audience for this zine. Zines That Never Existed explores nine different zines Joshua James Amberson wanted to create but ultimately never brought to life. Joshua thinks through the lifespan of each idea, discussing inspiration and process and then considering why each project was ultimately never completed. A great reminder that abandoning ideas is part of the creative process!

Vanessa hasn’t just published her childhood diary — she has literally scanned the pages for us to read. It’s all here — the non sequiturs, the can’t-miss 1993 media, the relationship drama:

Now he’s below a friend. He broke my heart. Other than that today was a good day.

Sincerely,

Vanessa

Y’all are here for rabbit holes, right? Here’s a great one: Dollar Country’s impressively researched deep-dive into a rare 1968 country music single and its curious legacy. Eddie Noack’s “Psycho” didn’t make a big splash when it was released, but has continued to appreciate in value and sold for just under $1000 this year. How does this happen? How does a song become valuable? What does “rare” really mean? You’ll have to grab the zine to find out.

Perhaps the most creative use for junk mail I’ve ever seen! Silasofthetrees & eladnarra’s Junk Mail Archaeology prompts you to imagine that you are a person in the future who has just come across a mysterious artifact of the past. What might this find have to tell you about the people who came before you? I absolutely adore the idea of turning mundane objects into magic or mystery with the aid of a simple perspective shift. And perhaps the wildest part — this zine actually made me look forward to getting junk mail, which I truly did not think was possible.

Felicity Fenton wrote a fascinating essay about life in the wake of deleting social media that I think about a lot. The way she writes about these platforms is so interesting; there’s a poetic defamiliarization she conjures that makes online life feel almost otherworldly:

I confirmed our relationship with a yes and for a few years we pretended to know each other… On walls, users spread the word, their word, someone else’s word, the Pope’s word, Yoko Ono’s word, Samuel Beckett’s word, the word of a lion, the word of the sun, words hidden inside other words, hieroglyphics.

If you’re one of the many taking a closer look at your relationship to social media in 2025, this essay will make you see your experience in a new way.

Part game and part art prompt contained in just one sheet of paper — this is exactly why I love zines so much. Grab your watercolors and roll a die to paint your way to six tiny masterpieces with the aid of Portia Elan’s How to Make Marks! Each number you roll determines the color you use and the pattern you make, meaning every piece is unique and you only discover what you’re painting as you go (which, as anyone who reads this newsletter probably knows by now, is one of my favorite things about the creative process).

Hope Amico has been making art for a while now (take a look at their letterpress postcards!) and has some advice to share for persevering on a creative path. This zine is chock-full of activities and tips that’d be helpful for any creative heading into the start of a new year, like Attend an art event that is new to you or Choose three books at the library based on their covers. (And, dare I add, not a boring guide at all — I love the collage style Hope used!)

This zine explores the ramifications of a Missouri earthquake that was predicted but never actually ended up happening. Dec. 3 is a wonderful archival accomplishment that pulls from maps, newspapers, books, and memory. I love how J.B. explores this moment of forgotten local history through a personal lens! It’s always fun to make connections between zines, and to bring things full circle here, I can see one between Dec. 3 and Zines That Never Existed — how the things that don’t end up happening sometimes matter just as much as the things that do.

• If you’re interested in making zines digitally, I super recommend alienmelon’s Electric Zine Maker! Takes care of layout for you and also provides a bunch of fun drawing tools and effects, all housed in a nostalgic interface that took me right back to my Kid Pix days.

• Zine Machine is a physical zine vending machine that can be found at bookstores, art galleries, and festivals in the Upper South! You can check out the zines they’ve highlighted (and even submit in the future) over on their lovely website.

• I’ve created a Recommendations list on Itch! If you want to check out the zines and games I’m enjoying during the rest of the year, I plan to keep adding favorites in the months to come.

• And if you missed it, here’s last year’s zine roundup:

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November 30, 2024

I thought it’d be fun to celebrate the two-year anniversary of Microfascination by sharing a little about one of its previous forms: a zine series I made in 2021 called Rabbit Holes.

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In other news, I would be remiss if I did not mention the incredible sendoff that Gage and the Split/Lip Press team gave me as I embark on my transition from marketing into editorial for Lost/Found, our new imprint devoted to rehoming out-of-print books. I’m more grateful than I can say for the friendship and support I’ve found in the small press community these last few years. (And to those of you who participated, thank you SO much!)

Many of you reading this now met me through my work at Split/Lip, and even helped me get the word out about our books over the years, and I want you to know that I’m grateful to you as well! Publishing, especially in our current climate, is not for the faint of heart, but these last three years have taught me that there are still many people out there who care about art and story and human connection as much as I do.

Thank you for being one of those people.

In this turbulent moment we’re all living through together, one thing I’m more confident in now than ever is the unifying joy of the creative process. Zines are just one medium for that, and there are so many more! I hope you spend some time with your favorite this holiday season.

Take care everybody! Annual Small Joys roundup coming your way in December.