Untitled

[Justin]
[instrumental music plays] I'm Justin. I'm some sort of librarian. My pronouns are he and they. 

[Sadie]
I'm Sadie. I work IT at a public library, and my pronouns are they/them. 

[Jay]
I'm Jay. I'm a cataloging librarian. My pronouns are he/him. 

[Justin]
And we have a guest. Would you like to introduce yourself? 

[Mariame]
Yes, hello. My name is Mariame Kaba. I use she/her pronouns, and I'm, I'm like a fake librarian. I do have a library science degree, and I'm happy to be here and join you today. 

[Soundboard]
[cheering] 

[Justin]
Welcome. I've been wanting to have you on for so long. I just couldn't find the right excuse because we have so many overlapping interests. So I was like, "Well, what, which, which of the things do I want to talk about? Do I want to talk about prisons? Do I want to talk about DIY? Do I want to talk about... Do I just want to yell about cops for like a, a good 30 minutes?" 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Justin]
Which I looked it up, and because we have every episode transcribed, and I think I've mentioned cops in like about half of the episodes. 

[Mariame]
That's right, yes. 

[Justin]
Um, but we haven't done a full episode on, on police and libraries yet. But like cops and security, I feel like we have to do an episode at some point. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
It's just like an unavoidable aspect of public librarianship and- 

[Mariame]
It is. It is. I did a zine called Arrested at the Library, and that looks at- 

[Justin]
Yeah 

[Mariame]
... kind of a history of cops in the libraries. 

[Justin]
Yeah, I think I have that one printed out. I just actually bought one of your zines, the one about the anti-slavery pamphlet that was sewn into the jackets. I'm forgetting the name of the author. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It was, um, it's, uh, The Appeal by, uh, David Walker. 

[Justin]
The Appeal. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
Yes. 

[Mariame]
The zine is, uh, Black Study. 

[Justin]
Yeah. I thought it would be good to ask you to come on and talk about zines and Black Zine Fair because I have kind of gotten more into zines as part of my librarianship- 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm 

[Justin]
... in terms of thinking about... Because I, I was working in scholarly communications for so long, where I was trying to get people to open up scientific communication and make things available for people for free, and allowing people to kind of have this approach or this access to scholarly literature that's so expensive. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
And through that, I, you know, was also working with open educational resources, which meant open textbooks, and then it seemed to just dovetail naturally into the world of DIY publishing, where people are doing skill shares and sharing things they're interested in and doing fanzines. 

[Mariame]
Yep. 

[Justin]
And it was just not something I really grew up with, growing up in a rural area- 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm 

[Justin]
... because there's wasn't any youth culture really in rural Florida because everyone there is retired. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
Uh, so, you know, I still find it interesting or strange to see like young couples with children walking around my neighborhood because I just never saw that growing up. But what's your background with zines, and why do you find them... Like, why is publishing so important to you, um, as someone who went into library school? 

[Mariame]
Yeah. I... My zine journey starts... I grew up, I was born and raised in New York City, and I actually discovered my first zine at Tower Records. People who- 

[Justin]
Ooh 

[Mariame]
... grew up in New York in the 1980s will remember, and then in the '90s, will remember Tower Records, which was where we would go to buy all of our records. And Tower Records had some zines that they carried, and one of the zines that they carried was this publication called Bad Seed, S-E-E-D, and it was a zine, a fanzine that was created by a woman named Miriam Linna. Miriam Linna was a drummer for a band called The Cramps, and she started making Bad Seed kind of like as a celebration of juvenile delinquency, because she's kind of making fun in the series of kind of the mo- the moral panic that swept through the US in the 1950s, and she looks at the way that the moral panic around juvenile delinquency kind of manifested itself in books, in music, fashion, movies of the time. And it was this black and white... I'm gonna put into the chat an image of the zine, just so that if there is a chat. I think there is. 

[Justin]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
I'm gonna share that with you so you all can see it. But it's just like a black and white, basic, 

[Mariame]
stapled, eight and a half, you know, eight by five and a half folded zine. And it was, it was surprising to me. I hadn't ever seen... I, I'd seen magazines, obviously, and I had seen- 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm 

[Mariame]
... newspapers, and I was like... I think when I saw this, I might have been like 14, and so I hadn't seen anything like this before. And I looked at it, and I thought to myself, "I can make this." Like, I could do something similar to this. I had access to my dad's photocopier at his office, and I had access to paper and to pencils, and I could just make something that was DIY that would take me not a million hours, and I could make it and kind of publicize whatever the hell I wanted. And so I was very much into dance at that point in time as a young person, and so I started making, like, zines about dance and dance history and cool things that were happening in the city, nightclubs I would sneak into. Like, I just started making those kinds of publications, and I would make copies enough for, like, five of them at a time. And I didn't really have a community of people to share it with. My friends were not into this at all. A Black kid growing up in the city at that time in the '80s, like, I didn't have a community that was zine-making, but I just liked making them. I would just do them, and then I would leave them at payphones. I would leave them at, like, the laundromat. I would leave them on the seat of the subway. I would leave them around, thinking to myself, "Maybe somebody would pick it up and read it." And I would make them anonymously. I would never put my name on them. So, that's how I came to start making zines as a teenager. Then, as I was getting older, I started making them using, like, typewriters and using word processing. I had a zine for a minute called Adventures in Youth Work when I was working with young people as a young person. And then in the... I moved to Chicago in the mid-'90s, 1995, and I found out about something called the Midwest Zine Conference, which launched, I think it started in either 1998 or 1999 in Bowling Green, Wisconsin. And it was this place where all these DIY publishers, self-published people who were making zines and art books, would gather and meet yearly. And I just attended, I think it might have been my first session I attended in, like, 2000, and they kept having, you know, gatherings, and they changed their name to the Allied Media Conference. Some of you may have heard of the Allied Media Conference. And then the Allied Media Con- then while, while they were the Allied Media Conference, they were still in Bowling Green, and then in 2007, AMC became, moved to Detroit. And that made a huge difference, because moving to Detroit meant that more people of color were coming to the se- to the AMC, and that meant for the first time in my life, mind you, I've started, like, looking zines in, like, 1985 or something like that, started making them probably in '86, and then in 2007 and 2008 is the first time that I met people who were Black and brown people who were making zines. So, I had, like, a long stretch in between that of being, like, one of the only Black people I knew who was doing it, and then all of a sudden, I had more of a community in the late 2000s to talk with and to learn from and to be part of a, a broader kind of zine community. And this is before all the zine fests that we have now all around the community. 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm. 

[Mariame]
And so that's, that's a little bit about kind of how I came to zines, quite accidentally. 

[Justin]
What did the, like, zine community look like in New York City in the '80s? I'm imagining either Star Trek nerds or, like, uh, punks. 

[Mariame]
Punks. It was all of that. It was punks, and they were all white guys. 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm. 

[Mariame]
So, I just, anybody who was making zines at that time who I met were white guys who were punks. 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm. 

[Mariame]
And that was a completely different, uh, scene and a completely different experience and life than I was leading- 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm 

[Mariame]
... in my community growing up as a Black Muslim kid. And, but I learned a lot from those guys, some of whom were also socialists. So, kind of as I was getting politicized as a young person, I was getting almost acclimated to other ways of thinking, you know, learning from folks who were part of the Nation of Islam while also learning from the Spartacist League guys, while also learning from the white punk guys who were social anarch- anar- anarchists, also learning. So, it was like a really, it was like a soup. I always say, like, it's part of why I'm probably, uh, ideologically promiscuous, because I learned a lot of things from a lot of different kinds of people, and I took what I wanted and thought was necessary and useful, and then I left the other things behind. 

[Jay]
That's a way more fun way of saying multi-tendency. Like, I'm gonna... [all laughing] Ideologically promiscuous, that's awesome. 

[Sadie]
Yeah, I'm storing that one away for later. [laughs] 

[Justin]
No, I mean, yeah, I feel in some ways kind of lucky to be raised in one particularly, like, stringent conservative household and then getting to then go other places with it and pick up very new and different things, and then you get to just kind of pick and choose and, and circle back around to certain ideas, so. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
But it probably took me a lot longer than you, 'cause I had to go to college and stuff- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Justin]
... to meet anyone else. 

[Mariame]
I was absolutely politicized as a teenager. I started my first organization when I was 15. So, I, I was, I was absolutely already, like, I was in it, you know? Like, I, once I learned about stuff, I was like, "Okay, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna be in it," you know? [laughs] And New York City is a place where you can be in it. 

[Jay]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's, uh, I feel like zine culture works really well in, in cities because there is that kind of, like, just leaving things on the subway, or Jay was telling me, like, Jay loves to give, like, gay tours of Boston. 

[Mariame]
I love it. 

[Justin]
Um, so whenever, whenever we're anywhere, he's like, "That was a cruising spot. That was a cruising spot. This bus, this raid happened here." So, we were at the, we were, oh, no, we were, we were in New York City. We were at the- 

[Jay]
Yeah, no, with Partire Box, where the dude who did Partire Box would leave it in the men's bathroom at the Met Opera during intermission while he was, like, cruising dudes. 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Jay]
Um, and it would call, like, Votan Daddy and stuff in the zines. It's awesome. It's all online now. Uh, it's, now it's also, like, a respected opera critic blog. [laughs] But he got, like, banned from going to the Met for a while. But yeah, he would just, like, leave it in there when he was cruising dudes during intermission. 

[Mariame]
That's so cool. 

[Jay]
Yeah, it's awesome. 

[Justin]
Yeah, we were going to the bathroom during intermission at the opera, and he, and Jay was like, "That's where he would leave the zines, and that's where he would..."

[Mariame]
Yep. I'm a big fan of public history. I also do make, uh, walking tours, so I'm always interested in people who are interested in that kind of thing. It's a totally different way of inhabiting space in a city. Um, you always learn new things. It's a way to explore your city in a totally different way, so that's exciting. 

[Justin]
That was really probably my favorite part of grad school was, because I, I worked at the University of South Florida as a grad student, and I got a job in special collections. And when you're in special collections, it's all just local stuff. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
It's all just local characters. Some of them are still alive. Some of them come in and check in on their collections, make sure- 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Justin]
... you're processing them or make sure you're still, uh... So, you know, there's just kind of like this rogues gallery of, like, living and dead people around you all the time. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
And you just learn, you know, everyone's dirty secrets in the city, um, which is great. 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Justin]
Um, and so I'm, I'm- 

[Mariame]
It's good not to be nosy. [laughs] 

[Justin]
Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the joy of local history, I find. Like, people who only do political history are really missing out. Like, I'm doing a... I'm doing research right now on these busts that happened in 1970s, late 1970s, at the Boston Public Library- 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm 

[Justin]
... uh, where the cops were just entrapping gay men. Well, really just, like, talking to them long enough to confirm they were gay and then arresting them. And, but also learning about, like, how dudes would cruise at the public garden or whatever. So you, you know, they would just stand there pretending to pee against the wall underneath the bridge, and I'm like, "Oh, I walk past that bridge all the time." So it's fun. You do get to, you do get the gay tour, walking tour with me and Jay around Boston. 

[Mariame]
I love it. 

[Justin]
I'm curious though, because, like, for me, I work in a university. I'm around a lot of younger people, and when I was at my last job, it was, it's a Catholic university, and that was where I went, and it's in rural Florida. And I decided to single-handedly just build a zine collection there, and the way I was doing that was kind of just printing things off that were free to print or buying things and donating them. And this whole time, I'm like, you know, hoping that I'm going to see students engaging with it or finding it interesting or, you know, coming to some of my zine programming. I didn't get a whole lot of buy-in, but that sort of thing takes time, and I wasn't there long enough to really see it bear fruit. That's the kind of work that takes, like, a whole year to really- 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm 

[Justin]
... pay off, and I was only there 10 months. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
But I have read a lot about, like, zine comeback among younger people, and I wonder if you have any thoughts about, like, why that might be happening and where it might be happening, if it's happening in cities and suburbs or- 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm 

[Justin]
... why now, or what's your, your read on why people are interested in zines again? 

[Mariame]
Yeah, I think it makes total sense that people are back to in- being interested in zines because zines are timeless in some ways, right? They are low cost, low responsibility. You know, it doesn't ask too much of you to be able to engage with. Zines are also strangely very intimate. 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm. 

[Mariame]
They're-- The i- the topics that get covered are topics that aren't necessarily mass media kinds of things. People share their, bare their souls to each other through zines and zine-making. There's a lot of a confessional often feel to some of the zines. And I think that in a culture that we live in right now where folks are exhausted by the screen, where they are constantly using the, their kind of pocket or handheld computer, their phones all the time, and that constant scrolling, I think having something tangible, small, easy to get, doesn't ask too much of you to engage is appealing. Having analog materials is appealing. I think it's only going to probably be more so with AI in the ways that that's being deployed in people's lives. And the most important part for me about zines and zine-making is the community that you can build through it. So if you are in a suburb area and there's, like, a local bookstore that has zines, often they also will have projects where people can come and make their own zine, or they'll have a zine exchange, or they will have a program that talks about a particular issue and invite people to make zines about that issue. It, it allows people to touch grass, right? You can get out of your- 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm 

[Mariame]
... very limited place and do that. And then I think finally, I always think about zines as a way to bust surveillance, you know? 

[Justin]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
You can make your own thing. You can anonymously make it, and then you can just throw it somewhere, and somebody will pick it up, and maybe they'll read it. And that's like this kind of invisible connection you've made with a person that you don't know, but you know you made the connection, and there's something very satisfying about connecting with each other with low stakes, I think, where people who maybe are anxious in other settings don't mind being connected in that kind of way and perhaps feel heard in a strange way by a stranger in a way that you don't necessarily by your own friends or your own family. I think, I think all of those are reasons why this generation has been picking zines up more, and I see that very much. When we started, we founded, uh, Black Zine Fair in 2023. We had our first Black Zine Fair in 2024, and right away, we could see, first of all, in the numbers of applications we received from people who wanted to table, the numbers of people who showed up that first year, it was clear that people had an interest, that overwhelmingly they were all young. And I think COVID at its height had something to do with people being just like, "I am done with doing this stuff this way. I don't want to be online anymore. I want to be with other people, and I want to hold on to some hard copies of things, and I want to be in community." And so I think we benefited from that pent-up feeling. 

[Justin]
Yeah. I think there's- Thinking also about, like, tangible owning things, you know, 'cause I, I always see a lot of people who do collecting, like the, the plastic crap stores, I call them, like the, the anime stores and the video game stores and the comic book shops where everyone's just kind of buying plastic crap. And yet when I go to, like, I, I have been doing the, the zine pavilion- 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm 

[Justin]
... at ALA, and, you know, we always get local zinesters to table. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
And so I get to see different cities doing, you know, different things. And the stuff that people are putting out isn't plastic crap. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
It's, you know, really small, like accordion zines and the, the infinite folding zines. I forget what those are called. I've been wanting to make one. They look complicated, but apparently they're really easy. And, you know, people who were cycling in and out this year at Chicago, every single time where people, uh, yeah, you just start talking to them about why they're making zines, about what they like. People who are really into science or, you know- 

[Mariame]
Hmm 

[Justin]
... taking their PhD research and turning it into these little books. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
And so... But there's like a collecting thing to it as well. Like, you get to collect and save zines. You know, I've got like probably a bag of stickers still here that I haven't even gone through yet from Chicago- 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm 

[Justin]
... of just, like, prints and things that I turn into magnets and then throw them all over the ducts in this house, which is pretty fun. So- 

[Mariame]
Yeah, I think- 

[Justin]
Yeah, I- 

[Mariame]
I think, I do think that there's also the thing about zines is that you're supposed to give them away. 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm. 

[Mariame]
Like, that the, the DIY culture, but also the trade and exchange, right? So, like, a big part of going to a zine fest is to bring your own zines, even if you're not tabling, and- 

[Justin]
Yeah 

[Mariame]
... trade it with one person who's there, and, like, that's the ethos. I mean, it, it was people who were steeped in a kind of left anti-capitalist model who were the folks who were making these things in, in, especially in the '70s and the '80s and the '90s. And so it's kind of interesting now to see the, the parallel tracks of the zine culture and then the art book culture that has emerged over the last 25 years, where artists are making these really beautiful, sometimes one-of-a-kind objects, which are books, and those are being sold for lots and lots of money, when the whole purpose of zines in the first place was to make them free and/or to make them super, super low cost so that anybody could access them. Even the way there was a, a zine of zine, the way that I used to be able to get zines from people from around the country was that there was this magazine that was a zine that included a way where you could do... Basically, you would put class... It was like a classified zine of zine magazine, and you would- 

[Justin]
Mm 

[Mariame]
... send them a description of your zine, your PO box or address, and let people know that you have the zine that you've published, and they would publish your little kind of ad in there. And it would be like, you know, "Zine about my dog, Jeff." And then it would say, "If you want a copy of it, you know, send me to this PO box with $1 in your envelope, and I will send you back the zine about my dog, Jeff." You know what I mean? Like, and you would do that. You would write to people. You would look up that whole entire... Like, it was a lot of pages, and you would look through it, and that's how I got zines from folks in Portland and folks in, you know, places I hadn't been at the time and hadn't ever visited. You know, a kid in Texas, you know, and I started sending each other zines, like, literally through the mail, you know, trading them, no money exchanged. And I think there's something about that that is so... I don't know. It's so connective and connect... It, it allows you to feel so part of something with somebody. It's almost like your own little secret that you're, like, exchanging with each other in this really beautiful way. And yeah, there's that. I think that's a huge part of zine culture, and I think I sometimes worry that some folks, uh, in some spaces are, are missing that part, you know? 

[Justin]
Yeah. I mean, I think I feel that too, where, you know, people are so used to making themselves a brand. 

[Mariame]
Yes. 

[Justin]
Um, we have a friend who is kind of a, a well-known indie artist. We had her on actually last episode, Katie Freeway, House of Decline, and she talks about, like, how this can drive you mad. Like, if you become the product and, like, how people are so used to selling themselves- 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm 

[Justin]
... for attention, and then that attention becomes your way of making a living, and everyone's- 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm 

[Justin]
... obviously broke. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
So it's makes total sense to be like, "Here's my Instagram, and here's my Venmo," and- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Justin]
... you know, everyone puts them out when they're tabling, and it's like, "Here's my Venmo. Here's my price sheets," and everyone's their own little artist. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
I do appreciate more the analog part of it, though, of like, "Hey, you know, I made this. Give me a dollar." 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
Which is fair enough. But- 

[Mariame]
And the dollar was really just so you can pay for the stamps. 

[Justin]
Yeah. And it was... I think I've only traded, like, really only had one person be like, "Oh, do you want to trade?" 'Cause I was like, "Oh, I made this zine." I'm always giving my stuff away for free. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
So I was just like, "Oh, I have this zine. Here, let me go grab you a copy, or let me go print one off for you." And then she was like, "Oh, do you want to trade for one of mine?" I'm like, "Sure, yeah." 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
"Why not?" 'Cause I'm always just throwing free stuff at people. But yeah, we were doing that with the, the conference ribbons. We were, we were fundraising for Sadie's flight [laughs] to, to Chi- to ALA. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
Um, it was like, "Send me $2, and I will send you an envelope with a Betty White stamp on it." [both laughing] I was just putting out these sta- these stacks of envelopes of conference ribbons- 

[Mariame]
I love it 

[Justin]
... to people. But yeah, I do, I do get a little weird sometimes when I'm like, "Mm, yeah, are you, are you just here to sell?" 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
"You're-" ... product. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. Is it commerce? 

[Justin]
A little worried about it. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. I, it's absolutely worrisome if you're thinking that that's the main goal of it, is to just, you know, commerce. I think people obviously should get paid for their labor. I think that's, you know, useful and important, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't think for zine-making it should be the main thing you're trying to do, [laughs] is like how to make a living by making zines. Like, that, that just feels- 

[Justin]
Mm 

[Mariame]
... completely like an anathema to me. Um, yeah. 

[Jay]
I, I wonder also, like, especially with the, like, selling yourself as the product kind of thing, where it's like the... I feel like one of the great things about zines is it's a way of sort of... Even, like, they're very communal, but you can also sort of share these, like, great individual- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Jay]
... stories and, like, learn about people and, like, share your experiences. And, like, we see that a lot, especially in, like, feminist zine spaces, right? And then I think that has, like, also turned into the sort of, like, parasocial, all the things I write are me oversharing about my life, and I'm selling myself as this product- 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm 

[Jay]
... kind of thing that, like, draws in, like, parasociality and stuff. Like, I, I wonder how much, like, that's become, like, a problem in this space too. It's like I have to keep making zines about my personal life in order for people to pay for them. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Jay]
Otherwise, they won't. Yeah. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. I think it's hard, right? Like, part of the culture has emerged into being a culture of compulsory confession. 

[Jay]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
We are, we are that culture, right? Where before you're even allowed to say anything about something, you must divulge whether or not you've had an experience of that thing in order to be able to have the currency to enter the conversation, right? So- 

[Jay]
Yeah 

[Mariame]
... you want to talk about sexual violence, and the only way you can do that is then to say, "I'm also a survivor of sexual violence," and then blah, blah, blah, blah. 

[Jay]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
Right? So there's that culture of, uh, compulsory confession, which that, that wasn't the feeling of the culture in the '80s. In fact, you weren't supposed to be talking about this stuff out loud to other people. It was very rude or very not appreciated. [laughs] In part, that's why the young folks were turning to the anonymous zine to share their lives- 

[Jay]
Yeah 

[Mariame]
... was because we didn't have the counseling culture, self-help. That didn't really hit until the '90s and beyond, right? Like, in the '80s, we were not being encouraged to share our ex, our every thought with any random-ass people. Like, your whole family was like, "Don't be talking about this stuff. Don't put your stuff out there. Don't do this. Don't do that." I see my niblings today, their whole lives are... They don't even have a concept of privacy. There's no sense of that. Like, they are completely thinking of themselves as public beings- 

[Jay]
Yeah 

[Mariame]
... from the time they're tiny to when they're, you know, in their 20s. And so it, it... Those zines were your private confessional, but they were usually anonymous. [laughs] You weren't, like, putting your name to it, and that was part of the catharsis and the, the kind of ability to be able to, like, dump all the stuff on there and be like, "Oh, okay, well, nobody's going to be able to turn this back to me. It's just a way for me to journal and share out loud and put the, put the stuff pen to paper in my own way," you know? Um, so it's just the culture changed and has changed and continues to change. 

[Justin]
Yeah, I wonder what the impact of that will be on the zine ethos for young people. I mean, obviously, it's up to them to figure out what their own culture is going to be like. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

[Justin]
There's nothing you can do about that. 

[Mariame]
They're bringing in a lot of digital zines, this c- this- 

[Justin]
Yeah 

[Mariame]
... this generation. I see a lot of- 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm 

[Mariame]
... their, their zines are online because they literally have lived digital lives from the time they were in the womb, you know? And so, so I'm, I'm interested to see what that does to zine culture because a, a big part of the notion is to be getting yourself offline, to be in community with other people, you know, in, like, being able to, you know, be in person with each other in some way, which I, I know, I understand, like, that I am not of that generation. And so I really hear the, the thing where people tell me, you know, either they have anxiety and they don't like being with a lot of other people, or they can't make any friends, or they prefer to be behind the screen or, like, you know, I, I take those things seriously, and I hear that, and I'm still that person that's like, "Yeah, and you still do have to know who your neighbors are." Like, you do. Like, you, you have to make an effort. You know, you have to get over those phobias and fears. You've got to make connections. You're not going to survive without that, you know? And so I, I hear myself sounding a, like an annoying, you know, late middle-aged person, but I, I do, I do think that we miss something. I think there was something really helpful in the, in the communities that we made with each other as young people, and the friendships that we made with unlikely people who we wouldn't meet in other kinds of contexts gave me a fluidity of how to live in the world and how to be comfortable in so many different kinds of contexts, you know? Yeah. 

[Justin]
Yeah. It's really... I mean, again, talking about conversations we have, like, we, we have friends who have, like, a, a dating and relationship advice show and say, like, "If you want to meet people and you want to fall in love, you have to leave your house." 

[Mariame]
Mm. 

[Justin]
You have to, like, go put yourself out there and go, you know, meet people. And I am, you know, also meeting, like, younger queer people, again, because of my friend Katie, who, you know, you see the, yeah, the real fear of, like, you know, a lot of them are trans, and so are a real fear of, like, going out and being themselves and, like, finding themselves, and they're all doing this in their early 20s. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
And so, like, it's a real crippling fear, but you also do see signs of, like, you're not pushing yourself- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Justin]
... quite enough. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
You really, you need, you do need kind of a kick to, like- 

[Mariame]
You do 

[Justin]
... it's every once in a while, she's just like, "Be confident, stupid." 

[Mariame]
Yeah. [laughs] 

[Justin]
Um, you know, like... 

[Mariame]
You do. You have to do it. You ha- And I, I get so much rage online whenever I post- You do have to know your neighbors. There, there's not ever going to be a time when there are not nine people in the mentions talking to me about being ableist, being this, being that. 

[Jay]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
And I'm like, I'm like, "You all think disabled people can survive isolated on their own?" People who are disabled have better understandings of the need for a community of people than you all do, seemingly, because you're not like, you know, this makes no sense. There's also a cultural thing that is key that has to do with white culture in the US, and the difference I... Just so much of the conversation that I see and notice is like between my Black friends, my Latina, my Latina friends, my friends who are from, who are Muslim, the fr- like our conceptions of what community mean are not the same thing, you know? And yeah, it can be oppressive, and yet, and yet it makes a huge difference to have actual people who you could name, who you could be in connection with for whatever the reason that you're going to need to be in connection with other people. And, and this is why I really, I don't want to give up that part of zines. 

[Jay]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
I wanted to... I want that part of like you're connecting with other people, not just their ideas, with actual people. You know, that's why we have a Black Zine Fair, because we want you to come and be present. We, every year we get asked if we're going to have virtual options to the Zine Fair, and both Neda and myself are adamant that no, we will not do that. The whole point is for you to come and be with other people, even if you want to go and sit in a corner of the reading room that we have and just sit there for hours by yourself. You're doing that in the midst of so many other people around you, you know? 

[Justin]
Yeah, there's a, there's, there's a somatic effect of being around people that is hard to quantify. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
It's something I think about a lot too, of just like how close you are to other people all the time. Like when you're li- like having lived with my family for the first time in a long time- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Justin]
... after living alone for, you know, a decade. It's like being around people constantly all the time, and then, you know, me and Jay moving in together, like being around another person all the time has a, like a very noticeable effect on your body and your mood. And like I realized like I don't get sad anymore. 

[Mariame]
Mm. 

[Justin]
I don't have the time. [laughs] Like... 

[Jay]
I'll take that as a compliment. [laughs] 

[Sadie]
[laughs] I can see that. Jay's got that kind of presence. 

[Jay]
[laughs] 

[Justin]
Yeah. Well, I don't have the time. Like when, when am I going to have the time to mope? I can't. 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Jay]
We got movies to go see. 

[Justin]
Yeah. We've got stuff to do. We've got to go talk about, you know, the duck boats again or something. I don't know. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
We just got to go walk around. We got to go walk to Chinatown to go get groceries, you know, like- 

[Mariame]
Yes. Yes. Makes a difference. 

[Justin]
Yeah. It changes, I think, your, your brain chemistry. And so there is that kind of like real... Of course, there's also like the COVID conscious part of this, right? 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
So there's a lot of people who, again, are very COVID conscious and are immunocompromised and do not want to go out. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
And you have to balance like... For me, I think I'm lucky kind of being on that cusp of like I was very online at a pretty young age, but I also realized like these are really important friendships that I've made online with people who have changed me, but I also need to be doing things in person, like- 

[Mariame]
Yep. Both 

[Justin]
... when I was living in Texas, I moved just to be closer to downtown so I could walk- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Justin]
... to like the bars and stuff because I didn't, you know, obviously there's no public transit in the South, so, you know, there's no buses. So like I literally moved just to be closer to go walk around and meet people. And even if you're not in the city, like you got to live somewhere close, and it's obviously a big investment, but- 

[Mariame]
Yeah. We're... I mean, it's both and. You know, we, we are very understanding of and incorporate within our care, our care principles of the Black Zine Fair, a requirement of masking for all of the people who are exhibiting and for the people who are in attendance. But as the years go by, it becomes harder and harder to enforce that part for the people who are in attendance. And we also have health stealium that come, and they have COVID tests that they bring with them. They bring, you know, they bring a whole bunch of things that are about keeping each other safe. Our communal values for Black Zine Fair, we try to live into in real life. So we do... I think people still tell us that, you know, they're always so shocked when they see photos of the Black Zine Fair because they see so many people wearing masks. And to me, again, I really do try. I understand that like part of being a person and a human and living in the world is to try to shrink the distance between my values and my actions, and that that's a lifelong process, right? 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm. 

[Mariame]
So I'm always going to be in a process of trying to bring those things closer together, and they never are going to fully overlap because I'm a human being and I'm fallible. But what we're trying to do with the Zine Fair is try to inhabit our values, and one of them is we want to take care of ourselves and take care of each other. And part of that is to be COVID conscious because we've got a whole community of folks who want to be able to participate and without these kinds of precautions are feeling less likely to be able to join. So that's also a part, in my opinion, of the culture of zine making. It's DIY, yes, but it's caring. Care as an antidote to violence. Care as an ability to make sure that we exhibit and actually demonstrate solidarity, right? 

[Jay]
Yeah. It's like zines and like the Zine Fair is almost like a proxy- 

[Mariame]
Yes 

[Jay]
... for a... Justin, what's that thing you're always saying where it's like a phrase that like activates thinking or discourse or something? 

[Justin]
An intuition pump? 

[Jay]
An intuition... It's like a, not an intuition pump, but like a, a thing that facilitates these other broader- 

[Mariame]
Yes 

[Jay]
... you know, things of like solidarity and community building and what that actually looks like in practice in all of its messy imperfectness. 

[Mariame]
Exactly. 

[Jay]
Right? 

[Mariame]
Exactly. 

[Jay]
Um- 

[Mariame]
It's configured. 

[Jay]
And like, and that's manifested through just like, "Hey, let's do this fun DIY thing and share it." But like that's-

[Justin]
The, the physic- like, the physical object is, like, cool and important, but it's like that's standing in for all of these other things. 

[Mariame]
Exactly. It's whatever you're building, you're building a prefigurative world. You're trying- 

[Justin]
Yes 

[Mariame]
... to be in a situation where you are acting as if. As if we live in a world where we all care about each other, as if we live in a world where we pay attention to people's unique talents and celebrate them, as if we are in a world where we really take seriously that we want to bring in as many different kinds of people together as we can, right? Like, so that is the reason to have a zine fest, is to be able to do that, to prefigure the world in which we want to live and try to manifest that through this particular way of bringing folks together. So, yeah. 

[Justin]
I am curious about, like, other... 'Cause you, you do obviously a lot of things. 

[Mariame]
[laughs] I do. 

[Justin]
Um, you're a very busy person. Like, I, I just get exhausted watching. 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Justin]
Um, and there's... I wonder, like, if you're seeing... How am I wanting to phrase this? Like, like, I, I watch whenever we're doing, like, we're doing these, like, crafting afternoon things- 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm 

[Justin]
... at the university, which is, you know, I work at, like, a rich university now in an urban area. Like, our students are, you know, not, I would say, the median young person. I would say they're, they're doing pretty well. And, but I do see, like, pretty solid turnout for, you know, like, painting and making stamps. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
And we were doing, like, cyanotypes, and I wonder if, like, you are seeing a particular activation among, like, Gen Z in particular in, like, public organizing or, or getting turnout, because a lot of the conventional wisdom in academia right now is that people just don't show up to things. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
Like, people, particularly post-COVID, will sign up for something and just flake, and it's just a massive flaking- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Justin]
... problem. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
I'm wondering if you're seeing that reverse or continue or, like, what you're seeing. 

[Mariame]
No, I definitely am seeing the flakingness. I definitely am. Like, I think, I think, I do think that COVID has shifted so much that we haven't even caught up to yet, and including our relationships to each other and the way we relate to each other in the world, and we haven't been able to have any sort of real reckoning about what has gone on and what has happened with that pandemic. Nobody wants to think about it. And now I understand what happened in the yellow fever epidemic and how they were able- 

[Justin]
Mm 

[Mariame]
... to just completely erase it within just a couple years of that epidemic. It makes total sense to me now. I didn't think it, I didn't, I didn't think it could be erased so quickly for, in people's minds, but then I, I should have known because what do human beings... Human beings are adaptable to the nth degree. Like, we will adapt to anything. That's both, like, the beauty of being human and the horror of it. And so I am seeing a lot of flaking out. I'm seeing, you know, I run, I've been doing this Communiversity project. So last year we did a series of community-based gatherings that bring people together across age, across difference, across neighborhoods, and they're sliding scale, so $0 to whatever you can afford to give. And so we had, like, I think 28 sessions. We had over 350 people come to these various sessions, and for every session, we probably got 30% of the people who signed up showed up, you know, across different ages and generations. 

[Justin]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
And so I think, I think people have to relearn how to be social. I think that we're in that mode right now. I think people want a lot of things, but the culture is in, has emerged into such a, a way that people don't know how to actually actualize what they say they want, or they are struggling with that. So I really think, I've been thinking a lot about, like, what are the ways to bring folks together? So I'm always having some of that. I'm always looking to bring folks together. This summer, I organized, co-organized with my friend Andrea Ritchie, this Black Feminist Abolitionist Institute and brought a whole bunch of people together from around the country that were abolitionist feminist organizers, and, you know, we were together for, like, you know, three nights and four days, and we all came to this place, and we were, you know. And, and just the h- like, just trying to make those kinds of spaces a reality has never been more difficult. And I, this is as somebody who's been organizing and who's been having events since I was, like, 15 years old. 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm. 

[Mariame]
I've seen that complete difference. That's like a 40-year arc, and it was not like this, not like what I've seen in the last five years. 

[Justin]
Yeah. I mean, I, in just in my professional life, noticed the massive drop-off in, you know, we would offer skill shares at work. We would offer just, you know, "Hey, here's this interesting thing. Why don't you drop by for 45 minutes and learn about it?" 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
And we would get decent sign-up, nothing huge, obviously, but decent turnout- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Justin]
... most of the time. Like, obviously, sometimes there'd just be one person who shows up, and you go, "Oh, well. Well, we'll still do it." 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
But then, you know, maybe that was bad planning, but then after... And then we, we had, like, really great, during 2020, 2021, a lot of really great online attendance- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Justin]
... for stuff. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
And then the burnout hit- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Justin]
... I think. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
And then even when we were back in person, I was remote for a pretty long time compared to other people. It just never bounced back. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
And I'm not currently, you know, I, I, again, had a different job for a while, so I had no baseline. I'm like, you know, maybe only one student's going to show up because it's a small school. I don't know. But now it's interesting to see, like, you know, pretty decent turnout for some of this stuff. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
And so I, I was, that's why I'm curious, like, how, you know, if people are... Because people do crave this, these things, but they don't know how to get the things they want. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
I think that's a good way of thinking about it. 

[Mariame]
Yes, yes. But this is also very much related to what you see, or at least what I see as an organizer, which is people telling me they don't know what to do. And then you giving them a list of things they should do, and then them coming back to you and saying, "I still don't know what to do." And it's like, the issue isn't that you don't know what to do, it's that you can't make yourself do it. And those are not the same, that's not the same struggle, you know? And I can't help you to, I can't help you make yourself do things, 'cause I'm not in control of you. You're in control of yourself. So you have to figure out what are the blocks that are in your way that are preventing you from going from where you are to where you want to be, right? Like, I can offer resources, I can be an ear, I can, but like, I can't make you do anything, right? And I think that's the same thing that we see with being out in the community. Like, I, I, I, and let, don't get me wrong, like we, at BZF, we get an enormous number of people who show up, you know, that come. Like, we went from, I think, I don't know how many, how many people. We went like, we had like 59 exhibitors in 2024, and two years later in 2026, we had 110 exhibitors. Like, just both like 'cause we, we accepted more people, but also 'cause more people applied. So clearly people wanted to be part of things. We went from, you know, a small group of like, you know, I don't know how many people, 300 people coming to the first one, and then we were like over 1,500 people last, this year, or even more than that. I don't even remember what the numbers were, but like very much more people. So I, I think people want to come to things, and people do come to things. I do see the drop-off though between those people who sign up and those people who actually show up. 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm. If, what advice would you give to people who wanted to do a zine fair? Let's assume these are people who are going to show up and actually do it. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
If they wanted to do a zine fair in their community, what, what ways would they go about, I would say first probably finding other people and finding a venue, I think those are probably the two hardest things. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
Um, how would you, if you have any advice for people for getting a zine fair going? 

[Mariame]
Yeah. I mean, I think first of all, don't do it by yourself. 

[Justin]
Mm-hmm. 

[Mariame]
Find other people that are interested in this and work with each other. Secondly, go to many zine fairs. Like, find places that are close enough to where you live, go and see how those other zine fairs look, how they feel, what other people are doing. Talk to the organizers of those zine fairs. You know, you can find somebody's email address and be like, "Hey, can I set up 30 minutes to talk with you about how you guys did your zine fair?" Do your research. Ask questions. You know, sometimes people even have like their existing, you know, whatever their maps are, their plans of how they organize, you know, their, what their work plans are for Zine Fest. You know, so many people will be happy to give you their work plan so you can see very specifically like how they, what they ask for, what they need, how they set up the timing and the timeline, like where are you working back from? When do you need to make sure that you have your call for exhibitors ready? How long does that really take? Your, if you put it out to everybody, then you get like 5 million applications. Who's going to look through all the applications? Like, you have to, you have to be able to have examples before you, I think, so that you can rely on it. Like, don't try to just make it up by yourself out of nowhere with nothing. Really rely on what, and, and the zine community are really, it really is a community of people. Even if they don't know you, people are going to be willing to talk with you. If you say you're trying to think and figure out how to do a Zine Fest, they may even be like, "You know what? There's already a Zine Fest in Phoenix, by the way." Like, you know, like maybe go and volunteer at that one first. See what it's about, and if it's like now you have a different angle that you want to take and you want to do a queer Zine Fest in Phoenix instead of just a traditional one, then you would have gone and maybe volunteered to work at the general Zine Fest that already exists. And so you have like a better intuitive sense of what is needed and wanted. And people are willing to help you. So, you know, reach out, email, ask questions. The venues are impossible in most big cities. It's so expensive. So money is always an issue, and I know a lot of people who are into zines don't want to talk about money, but money is important. So how are you going to raise the money for your fest? Are you going to charge the exhibitors for tables? That means that certain exhibitors won't be able to participate. Who do you want to show up? You know? You may need to subsidize the cost of those tables. Well, that's more money you have to raise. Are you going to crowdfund to do it? Are you going to try to get a grant from someplace to do it? That, those are different timelines. So there's just a lot to think about. Um, what's the vibe you're going for? You know? What's the, what's the culture you want to promote? Are you going to partner with local organizations and ask them to come and do something at the Zine Fest? Are you going to have workshops at your Zine Fest, or is it just going to be straight-up tabling? Like, these are all questions that you want to be thinking about. But if you c- you will, you will figure out what those questions need to be by being present in spaces where you go to other Zine Fests and you see what's going on. Because then you'll be like, "Why are they doing that that way?" Like, "We should, we would never want to do it that way." But if you don't talk to them, you won't know why they did that, you know? [laughs] Like, it, it's probably for some reason that you're not aware of. So you need to ask people the questions, you know, about what it is that they're doing, why they're doing it the way they do it, you know. If there are no workshops, ask them why they don't have workshops. They may be like, "It's a disaster. We only have six hours in the day. If we add workshops to it, we can't even get a venue because we can't get extra rooms, so we only have like this gym that we can do it in," right? Like, so there's lots of reasons people make choices that they make. 

[Justin]
No, that's all solid advice. It's, I, I was, while you were talking, I was just thinking of all the things I've done professionally that give me the same kind of experience of like- Organizing conferences or volunteering at different things to run workshops and co-teach and all this other stuff. And I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I, I do kind of know." 

[Jay]
Event planning is so hard. [laughs] 

[Mariame]
Yeah. [laughs] 

[Justin]
Yeah. 

[Jay]
I was part of the Boston Anarchist Book Fair- 

[Mariame]
Mm 

[Jay]
... for a while, and an issue we kept running into was that the community spaces that we would use to book, because they're, it's in Cambridge- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Jay]
... in a kind of wealthy neighborhood, started being like, "There's too many people dressed all in black, wearing masks. We don't want you to have it here." Or like, "We stopped ha-" Like, they were basically like, "You can't black..." They thought people were black blocking- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Jay]
... if they were security. And so, like, we would just run into a lot of problems trying to just book a space- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Jay]
... because of, like, the space was grant funded, and so, like, how political could we be? What words could we have on our flyer? 

[Mariame]
Exactly. 

[Jay]
Like, what, you know, did we have to tell people working security to not wear all black? [laughs] 

[Mariame]
Yes. Yes. 

[Jay]
I'm like, "That, this is goth discrimination." [laughs] 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Jay]
But that was, like, a real issue, especially, like, with the, the, the changing, like, grant funding- 

[Mariame]
Oh, yeah 

[Jay]
... that would happen, like, at the national and state level. 

[Mariame]
Sure. 

[Jay]
Um, places started getting kind of spooked if you, you know, it's like, you know, anarchist is right in the title of the event. Like, is the nice, rich, white Cambridge, Massachusetts community neighborhood gonna want a bunch of punks and anarchists and commies, like, walking around their neighborhood, you know? 

[Mariame]
Well, let's be real. We're living under- 

[Jay]
Yeah 

[Mariame]
... federal fascism right now. 

[Jay]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
You know, con- 

[Jay]
Yeah 

[Mariame]
... that's rapidly consolidating. People are worried. Like- 

[Jay]
Yeah 

[Mariame]
... you know? And so, if you've got some title, whatever, that's, you're being brought to the attention of the authorities. 

[Jay]
Mm-hmm. 

[Mariame]
And so- 

[Jay]
Yeah 

[Mariame]
... I think that that, those are absolute considerations for this kind of stuff. 

[Jay]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
Liability insurance. Do you have it? 

[Jay]
Mm-hmm. 

[Mariame]
Does the space want you to have a, you know, 1,200 people, 1,500 people, 2,000 people showing up to their space, and they're responsible for if somebody trips and falls down the stairs? Accessibility. Is it wheelchair accessible? A lot of buildings are not made for that. If you're having something in an old church, you're not probably gonna be able to bring- 

[Jay]
Yeah 

[Mariame]
... a whole bunch... You know? So, like, does it have an elevator to go up to the second floor? Well, no. We can only get up the second floor by using the steep stairs that are super dangerous. Like, these are all the things we have to think about. And let's be honest, people aren't really nice to event organizers. 

[Jay]
Nope. 

[Mariame]
You know? People are not nice. People are... We live in this concierge-ification society where it's like everything has to be DoorDash, made to your very specific specification, and if it's not, then they're gonna give you a terrible Yelp review online. Like, this is the culture that we have wrought, and it's gotten worse ever since the height of COVID. So, when you're in that mode, if you're an event organizer, you have to be ready for, A, lots of complaints, very few appreciation posts or, uh, you know, even somebody at the event saying, "Great job, y'all. Thank you for doing this." And you have to be prepared for what will likely be somebody writing a screed after your event saying, "XXX thing didn't happen. It wasn't to my satisfaction. These people must be, you know, the worst people on the planet." Right? That's the world we're living in. And so, I think that means, like, if you're doing these events, you want to be doing them for the right reasons, and you want to be thick-skinned enough so that you don't jump down everybody's throat, because they will be assholes. 'Cause you will get them. People are assholes. And so, you know, again, and, and the expectation is that you are just delivering things to them. They're consuming it. It's not that they are co-creating the space with you by being present, right? Think of how few places you go now when somebody is like, you'll see, like, event organizers, like, running around, trying to, like, bring the food, do da, da. And, like, how few people you notice in the space have gone up to any of the event organizers and saying, "How can I support?" 

[Jay]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
"How can I help?" Like, I, you know, "I see you running around with all this stuff. You all need some hands. I'm here. I can do that." Like, I am always that person. I am always that person when I'm in a space and I'm seeing people. I will walk up to people, and I'll be like, "How can I support?" You know? And people look at you, just you can see, they're just like, "Oh my God, thank you." [laughs] Yeah? Like, "Oh my God." Like, "We need someone-" 

[Sadie]
Like the sun coming out over the top of them, kind of like. 

[Mariame]
Yes. Oh my God. The people that were supposed to be at our registration didn't show up. The volunteers didn't show up. We've got da, da, da. It's like, "Don't worry about it. I can totally sit at this desk and take people's tickets." You know? 

[Justin]
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's also good to, I think, probably a lot of young people want to jump the gun and, like, plan something on your own. And it's like, yeah, do just jump in and, and- 

[Mariame]
Yes 

[Justin]
... volunteer for something, and just go in with, like, beginner's mind- 

[Mariame]
Yeah 

[Justin]
... like you would to anything. 

[Mariame]
Yes. 

[Justin]
And say like, "Oh, let's figure out, like, what I want to do and how I want to do it," and get a couple, you know, under your belt. 

[Mariame]
Get some reps in. Get some reps in. 

[Justin]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
You know? Like, it's so important. You don't start at the top of a thing. You start at the bottom of it, and you learn, and you allow yourself space and time to fail a lot. [laughs] 

[Jay]
A lot. 

[Mariame]
A lot. To make the mistakes, to do the thing, to get to the point, and then you're still gonna be making mistakes even when you're expert. But at least when you make mistakes then, you have a better idea of how to fix them. 

[Justin]
Yeah. That's definitely how I felt every time we've done a live show, which by the way, if you are looking for a space, info shops have been extremely helpful for us. 

[Jay]
Info shops. 

[Justin]
In terms of just, like, none of them have ever asked me for money. They're just like, "Yeah, uh, give us a, like, give us time to do an ad." ... for the shop before you start talking or something. [laughs] Like, that's, that's literally all that's ever been asked from me from info shops. So, you know, find your local info shop if you have one. 

[Mariame]
Mm-hmm. 

[Justin]
And if you don't, I'm... There, there, there are some directories online that might be a little out of date, but it gets you in the right spot. And if you know one in New Orleans, I need to find a venue in New Orleans for next year. [laughs] 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Justin]
So, I... The info shop there lost their space. 

[Mariame]
Oh, okay. 

[Justin]
So, if you know some punks or somewhere I can sneakily set up a PA for an hour before anyone calls the cops, um- 

[Jay]
Bonus points if it's haunted. 

[Justin]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Justin]
So we're, we're at an hour. Is there anything you wanted... First off, thanks so much for coming on. 

[Jay]
Yeah, this was great. 

[Mariame]
Of course. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

[Justin]
This is, this is the, the middle-aged part of the show where we just kind of rant about, um, people- 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Justin]
... not leaving their houses. 

[Jay]
Young kids. [laughs] 

[Justin]
In the last few episodes, I think. [laughs] 

[Jay]
'Cause we're just like, "Go outside." 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Jay]
"We all have anxiety. Just go outside." [laughs] 

[Mariame]
[laughs] 

[Jay]
Is how I feel most days now. 

[Mariame]
We are right. We are right. So we can be in our righteousness and be right about it. 

[Jay]
Yes, that's true. 

[Mariame]
Yeah, yeah. 

[Jay]
In old Kathleen. 

[Sadie]
Old man yells at cloud. 

[Jay]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
Old man- 

[Sadie]
Era. 

[Mariame]
You know what? Old man yells at cloud for good reasons. 

[Sadie]
Yes. 

[Mariame]
Like, I think that's what you finally get to when you're just like, "Oh, okay, I get why he's yelling at these clouds." 

[Jay]
Yeah, it's like, "Oh, man, he was, he was cooking, actually." [laughs] 

[Mariame]
He was an asshole, but now we get it. Yeah, no, I, I'm appreciative of, uh, you taking the time to want to learn about my work around zines and zine-making. If folks are interested, they can go to Black Zine Fair on our IG. We also have our press, which is Sojourners for Justice Press. You can find some of our publications and the zines that we make with other people. Very excited that next year we'll have... We're going to be publishing four currently incarcerated people, writers, as part of this, the micro press that we run. And that press is where zine fair, Black Zine Fair comes out of. Um, we really, really wanted to create a space that neither Neda, myself had growing up with other young Black people who make things. Wanted to give them that space, and it's been wonderful and great, and we'll do it again in 2027. So look out for Black Zine Fair 2027. 

[Jay]
Hell yeah. 

[Justin]
Yeah, absolutely. And obviously, if anything comes out, I'll be putting it on the Blue Sky, uh, in terms of like, you know, if there's fundraising for it next year. 

[Mariame]
Yeah. 

[Justin]
And of course, any of your other projects. Obviously, now that you've, you've been a guest on the show, you get the free perpetual bump of- 

[Mariame]
[laughs] You get the free boost of the library pump thing. 

[Justin]
You, you get... 

[Mariame]
Yeah, I said- 

[Justin]
The per- the perpetual bump. 

[Jay]
The perpetual library bump. 

[Mariame]
That's a powerful thing. Yeah, you had some of my comrades on that did, are part of New York City Public Library Action Network and- 

[Jay]
Yes, NYC PLAN. 

[Mariame]
Yeah, NYC PLAN, and yeah, for the People's Leftist Library Project. So appreciate that, and those were great episodes. So thanks. 

[Justin]
Oh, thank you. I'm so honored you listen. [laughs] 

[Jay]
Oh, it's so cool. 

[Mariame]
I do. I love, I love the, the podcast. And, you know, as someone who isn't... You know, I worked at, at, at libraries when I was in college, and then I... My first job out of college was working at, uh, County Cullen Library as an information specialist, but I haven't been... I haven't, like, practiced practically and used my library degree in libraries since. And, but I, I just, I just, I think the public library is so important, and I really, I really want more people to understand that, like, it's such a critical part of any socialist future and present, with all its warts and all the difficulties. And yeah, we're gonna need, we're gonna need to fight to not lose them. So yeah. 

[Justin]
Yeah. 

[Mariame]
It's for all of us. 

[Justin]
And they provide... Yeah, and they provide an intuition pump for how the world could be. 

[Mariame]
Exactly. Exactly. 

[Justin]
It makes, it makes more sense. 

[Mariame]
And some things that you don't have to imagine. You know, like everything else we have to imagine into, and the public library exists, and we can make it better. And I think, I think, I, again, I keep telling people, I'm like, "If we lose the public library, we lose everything." So there you go. 

[Justin]
All right. 

[Mariame]
All right. Thank you. 

[Justin]
Good night.