The Philly Feminist Zine Fest showcases self-publishers with a message of empowerment

PAPER CUTS: Philly Feminist Zine Fest organizer Sarah Sawyers-Lovett assembles one of her booklets.
Mark Stehle

Local writer Sarah Sawyers-Lovett likes to carry a heavy-duty bookbinding stapler around, just in case she finds a spare moment to assemble one of her zines. For more than half her life, she’s been creating these small-circulation booklets, which range from feminist fairy tales to self-care advice to chronicles of her experience as a queer teenager in a conservative town.

At a café in Fairmount last week, she was stapling together a few photocopied pages of her latest work in anticipation of the Philly Feminist Zine Fest, which she is helping to organize. Now in its second year, the festival — not to be confused with the larger, broader Philly Zine Fest — is being held this weekend in locations around the city.

“Philly Zine Fest is like a first-come, first-serve thing. Philly Feminist Zine Fest is juried, so we choose people we want to see represented,” says Sawyers-Lovett. “We wanted to make sure that there was a cross section of people of color, of transgender, people with disabilities, people who are writing about all sorts of topics related to feminism specifically.”

Among the zinemakers showcasing their work on Saturday is Kerri Radley, who lost her hearing when she was 5. She writes Deafula, which has detailed her difficulty with finding a job, and her frustration with insurance companies, which refuse to cover expensive hearing aids. On her website, Radley describes the zine as “an informative resource for hearing allies, while still being relatable for anyone who has ever felt like an outcast.”

Sherley C. Olopherne, a Haitian New Yorker, will also be there to exhibit her series of zines on the black lesbian community from the ’80s to 2010. To create this historical work, she sifted through the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, which houses the world’s largest collection of materials about lesbians.

During the tabling, there will be hourly raffles to benefit Project SAFE, a local, harm-reduction organization focused on providing medical and social services to sex workers. “I think it’s important for something like this that is a feminist zine fest to also be about benefiting organizations in the community,” says Jennifer King, a volunteer at Project SAFE who’s helped organize both iterations of the zine fest. “It’s hard for us to get support from grants or donors because what we do is fairly controversial, unfortunately, so being able to find enthusiasm for what we do is really exciting and doesn’t happen all the time.”

Both King and Sawyers-Lovett have been involved with the festival since it started in 2012. With the help of three other organizers, they’ve been able to sustain it.

“Zinemaking is the kind of thing people do for fun, and because it’s important and empowering to be able to publish things without a printing press,” says King. “But it’s not the kind of thing you’re ever going to make any money off of, so creating a space where we can actually create a community around it is important.”

Growing up in Virginia in the ’90s, Sawyers-Lovett first encountered this community in her teens when she wrote to a queer pen pal service and received pamphlets from her correspondent. She sent money to other zinesters through the mail, and received publications from around the country. When she was about 14 years old, she began assembling her own zine.

“I started making them because I didn’t think there were really that many other queer people in my small town,” says Sawyers-Lovett. “It was really an affirmation that I wasn’t the only one, and so as I was writing to these other queer people I learned a lot about riot grrrl and punk rock and big ideas about race and gender and feminine sexuality, and so that was very educational to me.

“It’s a lot of fun and I also think it’s the most democratic method of media. Anyone can make one. Maybe not everyone could build a website or an app or write an article for a magazine, but everyone can put something on a page and make copies of it and distribute it.”

Although the golden age of zines may have passed and blogs threaten to thin the audience, Sawyers-Lovett believes the zine community will continue to thrive.

“The people who are enthusiastic about zines are always going to be enthusiastic about zines,” she says. “There’s always going to be somebody who is desperately clinging on to the idea of getting mail in a mailbox with stamps and letters, so I think there’s something really beautiful and ephemeral that you can’t get through tubes and screens. The satisfaction of putting something together with your hands and sending it to somebody is a personal touch that will always have value.”

Philly Feminist Zine Fest, Sat.-Sun., June 28-29, free, various locations, phillyfeministzinefest.com.