There are many ways to express yourself—through writing, art, music, social media, and so on. One particularly interesting way is through zine-making.
Zines are similar to self-published magazines, usually handmade and distributed independently. A zine can be about anything from favorite movies to deeply personal stories, ranging in topics and methods. Recently, zines have come to Pierce College through Jason Loan, an adjunct professor in the English department.
Loan has created a club available to students so they can work and learn more about zines. According to Emily Feleen, an employee at the Writing Center, Loan is hosting workshops about zines and he’s also the faculty coordinator for the Writing Center, so the collaboration between him and the Writing Center is more natural. The Writing Center’s partial collaboration with Loan includes a zine-making kit and houses the distribution and reading of zines for students.
“We hope that it starts students writing creatively and I think Jason would like to see students expressing themselves. He likes to see them express themselves beyond writing a five paragraph, and being a part of the Writing Center, we encourage students to write,” said Feleen.
According to Feleen, the idea of zines was mentioned during a staff meeting in spring quarter and came to fruition during the fall quarter. Loan taught Feleen and other employees of the Writing Center to make zines, and for one of the staff meetings everyone prepared haikus about the writing center.
The club meets quarterly from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesdays in front of the library.
“As an English teacher, I have students experiment with zines; my hope is to encourage students to start writing in the community and express themselves creatively, “Loan said about his passion for zines.
According to Loan, he hopes the staff will use zines as viable methods to write for their own classes. Loan has incorporated zine-making within his own classes, allowing his students to create a zine of something they are a fan of as an assignment.
—Staff Writer Justin Ngo contributed to this story.
