Long Beach hosted its first annual local community zine fair presented by BiggestLittleZine on Oct. 12, featuring works about policing, celebrity worship, and more.
The BiggestLittleZineFair event had a successful debut with many zine submissions and support from Long Beach independent bookstore, Page Against the Machine where the event was hosted.
Zines stands for the shortened version of the word magazine and are self published short booklets that are not typically commercially made and can be about anything the author desires.
A sign made at the first annual Zine fair presented by BiggestLittleZIneFest decorates the window of Page Against the Machine, an independent bookstore in Long Beach, CA on Oct. 12. The event featured the work of 47 zine authors covering topics such as celebrity worship, policing, and more. (Destiny Garcia)
One zine titled “What a Psychiatric Hold Taught Me About Prison and Policing” by Treva Flores discussed the author’s personal experience of their time on psychiatric hold during their episode of psychosis and the trauma that they experienced as a result.
“They didn’t treat me like a person while I was experiencing a mental health crisis,” Flores said about her mistreatment by police.
They state that they were being ignored, handcuffed and abused while being transported to a mental ward.
Flores was inspired to make the zine after experiencing their psychotic break so that more people could advocate for prison abolition and against the abuse of mental health patients by mental health ward employees and police.
Zine creator Treva Flores (left) brought friends to the BiggestLittleZIneFair event to bring more attention to the Zine community in Long Beach. The event was hosted at Page Against the Machine in Long Beach CA on Oct. 12. (Destiny Garcia)
Flores’ zine is meant to promote more community care and focus on rebuilding connections rather than “punishing people for being mentally ill,” Flores said.
Several zine creators like Flores have never had their work featured in a public space for anyone to be able to purchase due to reasons like being too shy to put out their work and a lack of resources to make multiple booklets.
Alternatively, some creators were not new to having their work published and able to purchase, like Nancy Lupian who wrote her first zine on a train.
The event featured Lupian’s fourth zine publication called “Musings on the Way” that was inspired by multimedia projects she has done in the past and her previous travels.
Lupian combines several forms of art such as drawings, poetry, and photos to create experimental travel journals.
“I don’t do them in any specific order, just until I have enough to fill 8 pages. This zine is different because I feel like I’m starting to find my style,” said Lupian.
Coordinators of the event invited creatives to submit zines via their Instagram @biggestlittlezinefair and had a better turnout than they expected with over 70 zine submissions.
The organizers of the event also hosted a zine making workshop to provide an opportunity to those who wish to make a zine but don’t know where to start.
One of the organizers of the event, Ra Avis is a formerly incarcerated disabled person of color who sought to give people who don’t have a supportive community, a place where their work could be shared and access to resources for their future creative endeavors.
Avis said that not only do they aim to create a safe space for zine creators, but they also focus on “accessibility for first time zinesters and those who are disabled and can’t attend the event.”
The Biggest Little Zine Fair had a successful debut with many zine submissions and support from Page Against the Machine, an independent bookstore in Long Beach where the event was hosted.
There were a total of 157 zine copies sold, bringing the gross sales to a total of $853 with the top three zine categories being art/photo, poetry and essays.
The next zine fair will be hosted on Dec. 14 at Recreational Coffee on 237 Long Beach Blvd. from 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
More information on submitting a zine to be featured at the next zine fair, future zine workshops and zine events can be found on BiggestLittleZineFair’s Instagram page @biggestlittlezinefair or on their website biggestlittlezinefair.com.