Zines are cool again. Wait – were they ever not cool? Doubtful. If your goal is to express yourself, share your knowledge, or generate community, zines are a fantastic way to get your voice out there. They can be a creative outlet, a place to organize your thoughts, an experimental practice, a hand-crafted physical item in an overly digital world, and a tool to criticize power. And while zines originally emerged in connection with underground movements and political countercultures, our current moment of zine popularity is being embraced, perhaps cautiously, by librarians and teachers who want to borrow the power of zines and zine making to encourage students to share their passions. Zines have become surprisingly fashionable in college writing classrooms, libraries have expanded to include zine collections, and teachers of all subjects have found that thoughtfully integrating zines into their courses can bring students closer to their ideas—and can help make classrooms into unique spaces for creative engagement and crafty forms of expression. Continue reading →