Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

Please tell me you've read at least one zine in your life.

Last week, GalleyCat published an essay by novelist Tim W. Brown about zines. That love poem took me back to my coffeehouse days in high school, paying a buck for a collection of poems, hardboiled stories and hand-drawn illustrations.

Check it out, and then follow the link for a mountain of old zines: "A list of publications from the 80s and 90s zine heyday ought to re-open the dusty accordion files stashed inside the brain of anyone remotely aware of publishing trends outside established commercial or academic channels..."

If you want more zine action, check out my interview with zine librarian, Jenna Freedman. Freedman opened a new archive for 1,500 zines at Barnard College--connecting to readers through a webpage, a MySpace account, and a Facebook space. She's making sure that these homemade magazines never die out.