BY STEVEN JUPITER
BRANDON—Are you between the ages of 11 and 16 and feeling like you’ve got a lot to say but nowhere to say it? If so, come learn how to make a ‘zine at the Brandon Free Public Library!
‘Zines are very simple, homemade “magazines,” filled with drawings, stories, comics, poems, collages, random thoughts, random words, long ramblings on your personal obsessions, short word-blasts on weird topics…really, whatever is in your head that you want to get down on paper and share with your friends (or even with the entire world). There are no rules and no grades. Let your imagination run free. They can be as basic or as wild as you want them to be.
You’ll make your content, lay out your pages, and assemble the finished ‘zine with the aid of a copy machine and a stapler.
The workshop will be run by Neshobe art teacher John Brodowski and experienced comic artist Ethan Nelson.
“Zines made a big impression on me when I was 15 or 16,” said Brodowski. “They’re a platform for alternative ideas outside the mainstream. I thought I had weird ideas and zines showed me there were other people doing weird things, too.”
“Zines are ‘punk,’” added Nelson. “I’m a punk rediscovering this about myself. I want to reconnect teens to printed media. I believe we have more than our share of creative energy in Brandon.”
This workshop, and the self-publishing workshop BFPL ran in the fall, were made possible by a $15,000 “civic imagination” grant from the American Library Association.
Brodowski and Nelson considered the fall publishing workshop a success. More than 25 people from the Brandon area participated, working on children’s books, gardening, music, fiction, poetry, and memoirs, among other myriad topics. Some of the workshop is available as recordings at the library for those who missed the event.
The Teen Zine Workshop will begin on Thursday, February 2 and run every Thursday through March 2, from 3:30 to 5:00 pm at the Brandon Library.
The workshop is free for all participants, but pre-registration is necessary. Space is limited to 15 people (must be 11 to 16 years old).
You can sign up at brandonpubliclibrary.org/teen-zine/
