In a 2003 profile, one of Jenna Freedman's mentors gave a glowing review of the young librarian in Library Journal. "Jenna speaks truth to power, and we need more young librarians like that," said Kathleen de la Pena McCook.
Since then, Freedman has blossomed as professional writer and librarian. Freedman recently opened a new archive for 1,500 zines at Barnard College--connecting to readers through a webpage, a MySpace account, and a Facebook space.
Today, Freedman wraps up her week at ThePublishingSpot, explaining her passion for truth and zines in my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.
Jason Boog:
What good/bad things happen when a zine writer grows beyond this initial model? Could you give me examples of great writers who started out with zines and moved on to bigger distribution?
Jenna Freedman:
The genre in its current incarnation is a little new to have "great writers who started out with zines and moved on to bigger distribution," but there are some who have gotten book deals (e.g. Ayun Halliday, Paul Lukas), and others whose zine went international (e.g. Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, Bust).
I can't say if it's good or bad when a zine or zinester grows out of the genre. It's just different. You do have to start worrying about what your editor or publisher will think and what your readers want to hear. Despite being a judgmental perfectionist I happen to love the rawness of zines.
One of their strengths is their imperfection and their individuality. The more people you're trying to please (editors, publishers, advertisers, readers, or your mom), the less authentically yours your work may be.
Of course there is nothing wrong with writing the great American novel, but zines aren't trying to do that. They'd be annoying if they were. It's often obvious when a zines that are written with an ulterior motive (a grade, for example. I'm not crazy about school zines).
I've seen it in prolific zine writers—the more they write, the better they get. Zinesters are also a very communicative crowd. If you trade zines with other zine creators, you can expect to get feedback from them.
Because the current incarnation of zinedom has its roots in punk rock and anarchism, one common theme is examining privilege—class, gender, race, sexual preference, etc. Reading so many of these zines has influenced my thinking and how I view the wide world and I hope how I interact with people from backgrounds different from my own.
Another important lesson from personal zines is that everything and everyone matters. You get incredibly intimate looks into people's lives, lives that you'd normally never be aware of and you value them. They cause you to be introspective. They can also inspire you to draw, maybe do craft projects, cook, or go on a long bike trip.
» Sucking Lemons from ThePublishingSpot
Thanks to Gawker, I found The New York Times' second article about zines. For the second time in a month, the paper of record is looking at those hand-crafted, independant publications produced by generations of starving writers. Turns out... [Read More]
Tracked on: May 9, 2006 8:44 AM | Permalink to Trackback