The FIRST EVER Star City Zine Fest hosted 23 zine-makers and micro-presses participating from Roanoke, Richmond, and North Carolina. The event included seven presentations and demos to capture the hearts of both long-time zine enthusiasts as well as brand-new beginners. Participants also enjoyed a zine-making station, a free zine table, a take-one-leave-one trading table, and more. It was also so wonderful to see the faces of so many of our alumni!
We are extremely grateful to Olchar and the CHS Zine Club who worked diligently to make this exciting debut a runway success. And we’d like to share Olchar’s reflection on this premier event:
“These kinds of joyful, strange, decentralized, offline, DIY carnivals of community will become even more vital and generative in the years ahead…
On a personal, but also communal note, I’d like to kind of retrospectively dedicate [this] event to the Roanoke micropublisher and avant-garde poet Jim Leftwch,who passed away of a heart attack the day before the event… Jim was one of the most active micropublishers in the region, who printed some of the most wildly experimental literary zines in the English language for over thirty years, first out of Charlottesville and then out of Roanoke. Jim’s literary and publishing activity were the reason I myself moved to the region 15 years ago, and he put me and others up in his home while I found my feet here financially.
…Jim was one example of the long-term and far-reaching effects that zine culture constantly generates: on local and international levels, on personal and creative and intellectual and political levels. Zine-makers have been doing this for over 150 years, and they’ll keep the good fight going after we’re all gone; thanks to all of you for carrying this on into the future!
We had a great turnout and are looking forward to growing this event next year.”
We would also like to thank our wonderful presenters:
Lulu Donaldson, “Why It’s Important to Make Bad Zines”
Will Towels, “Will’s Rule of Threes for Cartooning”
SamLevi Sizemore, “100 Years of Radial Zine”
Finch Champion, “Creative Packaging for Zines”
Kit Conely, “30 Minute Trash Zine”
Maddox Brown, “DIY Screen Printing”
Olchar Lindsann, “200 Years of Zines”
We hope to see you next year at our 2nd Star City Zine Fest! You can follow us on instagram or our website.
Star City Zine Fest 2025
The FIRST EVER Star City Zine Fest hosted 23 zine-makers and micro-presses participating from Roanoke, Richmond, and North Carolina. The event included seven presentations and demos to capture the hearts of both long-time zine enthusiasts as well as brand-new beginners. Participants also enjoyed a zine-making station, a free zine table, a take-one-leave-one trading table, and more. It was also so wonderful to see the faces of so many of our alumni!
We are extremely grateful to Olchar and the CHS Zine Club who worked diligently to make this exciting debut a runway success. And we’d like to share Olchar’s reflection on this premier event:
We would also like to thank our wonderful presenters:
Lulu Donaldson, “Why It’s Important to Make Bad Zines”
Will Towels, “Will’s Rule of Threes for Cartooning”
SamLevi Sizemore, “100 Years of Radial Zine”
Finch Champion, “Creative Packaging for Zines”
Kit Conely, “30 Minute Trash Zine”
Maddox Brown, “DIY Screen Printing”
Olchar Lindsann, “200 Years of Zines”
We hope to see you next year at our 2nd Star City Zine Fest! You can follow us on instagram or our website.