Writers share their homemade publications
On June 17, Split Rock Books hosted its first “zine fair” as part of its five-year anniversary celebration.
Four creators of zines — short for fanzines, or self-published magazines — sat outside the bookstore on Main Street in Cold Spring sharing and selling their work and promoting zines of artists not in attendance. The zines ranged in price from $1 to $13 and focused on poetry, essays, short stories and Hudson Valley exploration, among other topics.
After seeing an advertisement for the zine fair, Elena Lombardi LaBreche, 24, brought This Year, Half Gone, in which she reflects on graduating from college into a post-pandemic world.
“I’ve always been sort of shy about my work, and I figured this would be a nice, fun activity, but also just a good creative risk,” said LaBreche, who lives in Cold Spring.
Ethan Timm, an architect who lives in Nelsonville, debuted his zine, Cold Spring Brook: Map & Guide with Polaroid photographs and typewritten captions.
“I was originally interested in learning more about the stream that runs from the forest and Nelsonville, so I used zine-making as a process of both learning more about it, photographing it and meeting some of the people who live alongside it,” he said.
Timm said he enjoyed the creative process of putting together his publication. “In this day and age of easy digital production, it’s an amazing process to do everything by hand.”
Violet Herman, 8, and Zephyr Wayland, 11, brought their zines, Dog Heroes, and Giraffes, respectively.
Dog Heroes tells the story of a city of dogs that is attacked by cats who steal their treasures. The dog heroes save the day. “I really love dogs,” Violet said.
Giraffes is Zephyr’s third zine. A previous title, Dogs, was a children’s bestseller at Split Rock. When the bookstore said it planned to sell zines at its anniversary party, Zephyr said “sure” and created Giraffes “because my library teacher loves giraffes.”
Heidi Bender, the co-owner of Split Rock, said zines being made by local children and adults, often during workshops at Supplies for Creative Living in Cold Spring, reflected a bespoke feeling that the bookstore wanted to support.
“It was fun seeing this original work, and it made us want to see more,” Bender said.
