DIY or Don’t We #1

A Zine About Community
diy.or.dont.we@gmail.com
c/o Nicki
PO Box 743
Olympia, WA
98507, USA

I’m always amused by how small the world (or at least the circles I move in) is. Last weekend I went to a meeting about organizing a zine festival in Birmingham, and one of the people that showed up turned out to be someone who had posted on the same message boards as me a few years ago, and he in turn realized that he read my posts about comic books on The Beat.

I got this zine at the Portland Zine Symposium last year (and yes, it has taken me a million years to actually get around to reading it), and one of the things it includes is a discussion/interview with several women who organized the Bellingham Ladyfest/No Bra Time/Girls Noise Time events. One of whom I stayed with completely at random, after messaging her on the couchsurfing site, on my bicycle trip to Portland for that same zine symposium.

Yeah, the world is tiny.

As the subtitle tells you, this is a zine about community, what it means to different people, and how they help build it up. There are a bunch of different contributions from a number of people. Memories of farming with friends, the creation and continuation of a film society, contributing to punk zines, the aforementioned feminist events, moving to India with a group of Cambodian girls, a recipe for soup; there’s loads of stuff in here!

Overall this is a really nicely put together package, with the printing, layout, and design all really nice, though I kind of wish some of the fonts matched.