Interview: “Stolen Sharpie Revolution” Author, Alex Wrekk

Reading Local has been fortunate to play host to some great Q & A’s as of late, starting with Mike Daily, then came Kevin Sampsell, and most recently Green Bean Books owner Jennifer Green. Today’s interview only serves to continue this great lineup. 

Alex Wrekk has established herself as a “legend” in the zinester community, and rightfully so.  Her guidebook to the zine world, Stolen Sharpie Revolution, has helped a countless number of writers take a DIY approach to publishing their work.  Now in a completely updated and expanded version, Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2 (Lunchroom) has been released to rave reviews.  Wrekk also runs Small World Buttons, publishes the zine Brainscan, volunteers at the IPRC, and is helping to organize this weekend’s Portland Zine Symposium, an event she has been involved with since it’s inception.  I’m sure there are several other efforts I’m leaving out, sleeping probably not being one of them. The Symposium taking place this Friday through Sunday (click here for full schedule) prompted me to send her a few questions via email, what follows are her replies.

Reading Local) For those who have never been, what are some good reasons to attend this years Portland Zine Symposium?

Alex Wrekk) This is the 9th annual Portland Zine Symposium and over the years PZS has become sort of a Portland institution! People from all over the world bring their zines and comics to sell and trade which makes PZS a great place to find new and exciting reading material. We have over 130 different groups tabling at the event from single zine authors to zine and comic distros and publishers so there will be a lot to look at. We also have several exciting workshops about all sorts of aspects of independent publishing from panels about starting a comics collective, working with deadlines, seeking wider distribution and even a simple “what is a zine?” workshop. We even have other events over the weekend like an open mic, a dance party, and a movie night. As always The Portland Zine Symposium is at Portland State University and free to attend.

RL) You are running a workshop at PZS, can you tell us a little about that?

AW) This year I’m acting as the volunteer coordinator at PZS so I’m only running one workshop and that is this idea we came up with at the Zine Librarian (un)Conference at ZAPP in Seattle in the Spring. The workshop is about forming the Cascadia Zine Coalition and the idea is to create a network with other zine libraries, zine events and zine creators in the Northwest to support each other through things like zine readings, the 24 hour zine thing or even sharing information about printers, distros or shops that sell zines. This workshop is basically the first step in brainstorming this group and I’m excited to see what comes out of it.

RL) What do you think the zine community brings to Portland’s overall lit community?

AW) I would say that the zine community brings a DIY spirit to Portland’s lit community. People who create zines and comics represent a wide array of artists who aren’t going to wait around for someone else to publish their work for them, they are going to go out and do it themselves and find alternative means of distribution for their projects. I don’t think these two ideas are mutually exclusive though, I just think that the zine community maybe a little more used to DIY than the general lit community.

RL) Where are your favorite places in Portland to find new zines?

AW) I’m a volunteer at the Independent Publishing Resource Center and we have a HUGE zine library that always has new things coming in. Reading Frenzy is also a great place to find zines. And for me personally, my post box always seems to have lots of zines in it!

RL) You recently released Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2, your guidebook for all things zine related, how is that going?

AW) Pretty well so far! I spent May on a zine tour/holiday in the UK and France attending zine events and doing some zine readings and that was really fun. Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2 (Lunchbox) has been picked up by several distros and is receiving great reviews. I’m really pleased with how it is going! I’m currently working on creating a lesson plan out of Stolen Sharpie and incorporating it in the IPRC’s new creative writing and comics certificate program.

You can see Alex read this Thursday at the IPRC Benefit Rock Show held at Holocene (7:00pm; 21+; $5-$20 sliding scale).