In addition to whatever else I do with the time instead of sleeping/eating I also help to organise Birmingham Zine Festival. It started in 2010 as the result of people who make – or in my case, read – zines coming together with a few ideas. We had our second festival in June 2011, which was really well attended and was great fun all around!
Supersonic Festival has invited Birmingham Zine Festival to hold an exhibition and stalls of zines and artwork at their festival this year. For this we invited some of our favourite small press publishers from the previous festivals including Adam Cadwell, Carla Smith, Lizz Lunney, Catherine Elms, Dina Kelberman, Joe List and many more.
There’ll also be a screening of ‘$100 and a t-shirt’, Joe Biel’s documentary exploring the thoughts and experiences of zine-makers in North America, and a panel discussion – from A to Zine – Featuring Alex Zamora of Fever Zine, Nic Bullen, formerly of Napalm Death and Charlie Woolley. The panel will discuss the history of zines, their inspirations and the resurgence of zine culture.
If you haven’t done so already, get your tickets for the festival! We’ll be there on Friday and Saturday all day. Come and say hi! Bring cake 😛