AustLit
While the broader publishing industry adjusts to massive industry-wide changes, the zine scene (independent small magazines) is a great example of resilient and adaptive small publishing ventures. Zines take multiple forms, both physical and digital, and range widely in physical construction and subject-matter, covering anything from queer lit to DIY culture.
Brisbane’s well-established zine scene held multiple zine fairs through 2018 including the Zine & Indie Comic Symposium (ZICS), The Zine Fair at the Paper Snax Zine Hub, and the Zine Fair at the Queensland Poetry Festival. Zine fairs and launches enable creators, readers, and contributors to form a creative community around a common interest and encourage artistic collaboration to further their independent publishing endeavours.
Similar to larger scale publishing, the zine scene is an industry of relationships. This community of producers and consumers sustains itself through collaboration and interconnected creative relationships.
The Tundish Review is a Brisbane-based poetry zine with an expanding community of contributors and readers. Tundish encourages creative collaboration and is a platform for emerging creatives to establish an artistic footprint through small, independent publishing. I spoke with Katelyn Goyen, co-editor of The Tundish Review, to get her insights into zine culture.
Katelyn, how did you get started with zines?
KG: I was introduced to zines and the local zine community by Harry and Matt from Brisbane-based music zine Too Fat To Skate. While the idea of a literary zine was bubbling away, I went to zine fairs such as ZICS, where I met other local zine makers, such as Bronte and Annabelle and Woolf Pack. I was drawn to the way that zines as a medium bypass traditional publishing routes and make it easier to take things into your own hands and have control over the finished product. It was amazing that all it took for Nick [Van Buuren, co-editor of Tundish] and I to start a zine was a printer, an Officeworks long-arm stapler, and some strong opinions about literature.
“It was amazing that all it took for Nick and I to start a zine was a printer, an Officeworks long-arm stapler, and some strong opinions about literature.”
“It was amazing that all it took for Nick and I to start a zine was a printer, an Officeworks long-arm stapler, and some strong opinions about literature.”
How did you develop your connection with the zine scene?
KG: The infrastructure of Tundish supported Nick and I building connections with the zine community. This was mostly through launch events, where we would meet a lot of other local zine makers. The zine also takes on a feature artist for each issue. Often this artist is a zine maker themselves, such as Link Raptor, Bronte Mark and Chris Ramsay (a.k.a the Black Line Master). The same can be said for the featured poets, as many of them have either been featured in other local zines, or make their own zine. The Brisbane zine community is welcoming and encouraging of new zine makers, and that was helpful for us as we were finding our feet in the community. We sell primarily through Junky Comics, which is an incredible business that supports the local zine community and also facilitates building connections within the zine scene.
What do you get out of zines, personally and professionally?
KG: Nick and I are both passionate about literature, and The Tundish Review began as a creative outlet for this while we were studying at university. At this point, I personally benefit from the zine as it challenges me to make time to do something that I enjoy. It is immensely satisfying to create and publish a zine full of high-quality poetry and art, and even more so when it holds value for other people. Professionally, I believe that running the zine has given me some insight into the indie publishing scene and some minor business management skills.
What do you do now with zines? How has your experience evolved and changed?
KG: The Tundish Review has been around for nearly two years and the model is much the same as it was when we began. One of the biggest changes we have made was to shift from publishing poetry and short fiction to only poetry. This change has possibly shifted our audience ever so slightly; however, the experience is much the same. The zine has gotten bigger over time, as we receive more submissions than we initially did and also have more people showing interest in it. Because of this, we have had incredible opportunities, such as holding a reading at the Queensland Poetry Festival, which have made the experience all the richer.
Katelyn and Nick began producing zines after developing creative relationships with others in the zine community, and editions of Tundish became more established works with a consistent, definitive identity when those creative relationships were explored further and they collaborated with other artists, writers, and zine makers.
While The Tundish Review is explicitly a collaborative zine, calling for submissions from the wider community with each issue, its creators’ connections with the Brisbane zine scene speaks to how collaborative zine publishing is by nature. Each creative involved in publishing zines brings their own skills and background to the table. Developing relationships with the wider zine community through attending zine launches, zine fairs, and furthering those relationships with other zine-makers heightens visibility and distribution, and also heightens the final products through learning from and collaborating with other zine makers.
Relationships are necessary for the development of zine publishing and reflect how necessary relationships are to the wider publishing industry as well. Publishing any form of media demands the attention of a wide variety of creatives and other professionals who lend their skills and experience to creating the final product. Writers, visual artists, editors, marketers, and business people all lend their skills to publishing on a professional scale.
Zines work similarly, though on a much smaller scale. In the small-scale world of zines the restricted availability of professionals demands that people collaborate and communicate to produce high-quality work. Developing a network of like-minded people with similar interests and varied backgrounds and skills enables zinesters to broaden their distribution and interest, and thus their audience. From art and writing to publishing, distro and marketing, the zines scene enables creators to continuously broaden their base of collaboration and skills.
To further explore Brisbane's zine scene, follow The Tundish Review on Instagram.