Zine Fest coming to Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers

A festival mixing zines and community is coming to Fort Myers.

At Zine Fest, you will be able to create, purchase and learn about zines. Whether you have experience making zines, are just getting into them or want to learn about them, this fest will be for you.

It happens Saturday, March 1, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers.

Love Your Rebellion, a local organization that has been empowering marginalized groups through the arts since 2011, is hosting the event.

Angela Page, founder of Love Your Rebellion and lead singer of local thrash punk band Except You, has experience making the DIY publications, which fostered her passion for this event.

She explained a zine is a do-it-yourself booklet that is usually filled with art or writing, sometimes a combination of both.

“They are 100% made by the person or organization that comes up with the content,” Page said. “There’s no middleman; there’s no publisher.”

Their name is derived from magazines, which usually have to undergo a publication process.

“A zine is a derivative of what you might more traditionally call a magazine. It’s a little smaller and tends to not be as thick as a book,” Page said.

Page explained that these small-run publications became popular primarily for disseminating information, especially among marginalized groups. They originated as pamphlets, and then, around the 1960s, they started to be known as zines.

“They’re older than we think they are, but the biggest reason that they’re so popular is because when there is a middleman, a publisher, somebody gets to decide whose voice gets to be heard, gets to be published, and as we know, publishing has not really been accessible to people like women and people of color over the years, over the course of human history. So, in order to sort of circumvent censorship or even having somebody else say what gets to be published, people went and made them themselves,” Page said.

You’ll see zines pop up in the art community, especially around the music scene.

However, despite these publications’ popularity, their intention isn’t usually to make money.

“People make zines to communicate with their community or to create something that means something to them. It’s not necessarily about making capital. It’s pretty important because it’s a community tool, and it cuts out the middleman. [It’s] direct from the artist to the reader,” Page said.

Community and zines go hand in hand, which is why LYR is organizing an event that will connect the community and the art.

“Zines really hinge on community, [on] other people who make zines, as well as the people who love zines,” Page said. “There’s not really a lot of places to buy or sell these things or trade them, whether it be online or in person, so having an annual zine fest gives people a chance to come in from other areas and showcase their zines or read from their zines or sell their zines and build the community.”

The event will be held at the Alliance for the Arts’ Green Space and will feature zine and artisan vendors.

This event will have trade stations, a mini walk-up workshop and a take-one-leave-one station.

LYR is going to purchase a wide range of publications from online retailers who sell them and DIY booklets. They will have a large selection of those for sale, as well as LYR’s zines.

There will be poetry and other types of creative writing readings, as well.

This event will also mark the release of a new Love Your Rebellion zine titled Zines of a Better World. It’s made in tandem with visual artist Ross Jackson and a Rhizograph print shop in Portland, Oregon, called Secret Room Press. It will be printed and available for purchase by in time for the festival.

For more information on LYR events, click here, and read their zine archive here.

Alliance for the Arts is located at 10091 McGregor Blvd., Fort Myers, FL 33919.