If you love zines, you’re in luck: The Bremerton Zine Fest returns on Aug. 3.
Zines are typically handmade, self-distributed, short-run magazines. Although often associated with a punk DIY ethos, zines represent a diverse array of subject matter and genres.
Dani Gray started the Bremerton Zine Fest last year. Her friend Priya Charry, who works for Kitsap Regional Libraries, was trying to find someone to teach a free zine workshop. Gray volunteered to teach the course.
Read the entire Q&A with Dani Gray on Kitsap Scene+
After the workshop, as they were cleaning up, they got to talking about how cool it would be if Bremerton had its own zine fest. One day Gray checked Instagram to see if the name “Bremerton Zine Fest” was available, and it was. “I kind of knew at that point it was going to happen,” she said.
Last year’s festival took place at Evergreen Rotary Park. This year’s festival will take place indoors, at the Kitsap Conference Center in downtown Bremerton. It was hot during last year’s festival and toward the end of the day wildfire smoke started rolling in.
“I really worried about all of those artists out there in the sun all day, so the whole day I was running around with water and sunscreen and mommy-ing people,” Gray said. “So this year I decided I wanted to try and make it indoors to try and protect them from that brutal summer heat.”
This year will also feature more vendors — 44, up from around 32 last year.
Some are hyperlocal, others are regional locals coming from places like Everett, Seattle and Portland. And there will be far-flung participants, too, from as far away as California, New York and even China.
Zines are an accessible medium. One can make a zine out of a single piece of paper, for example, by folding into an eight, 12, or 16-page booklet, Gray pointed out.
And it can be about almost anything: “It can be about some kind of personal experience or a thought you’re having trouble processing,” she said.
Gray described zines as experiencing a “renaissance.” They’re easier to find than ever thanks to the internet, but local stores have also started carrying them — Ballast Book Company and Ashley’s Pub in Bremerton, and Salmonbery Books in Port Orchard all carry zines or independent, small-press offerings, she said. And her partner runs a local open table Dungeons and Dragons group, and puts out hints about the games in zines distributed around town. Gray said she’s also started seeing zines at book festivals, and a friend of hers who makes stationery reported seeing zines at a stationery show.
“They’re just starting to move out into culture in places that we haven’t seen them in a while,” she said.
Subscribe to Kitsap Scene+ to read the whole Q&A with Dani Gray
Gray said she tried to select a wide variety of different zine vendors at this year’s festival so regardless of one’s interests, they’ll find something to enjoy.
“I think one of the best things about zines is that they’re a digestible, easy way to learn something about someone else or another culture that you’re not used to, to just kind of help you be curious,” she said. “So I hope people will come check it out and meet some cool artists and learn about zines.”
Bremerton Zine Fest
Bremerton Zine Fest is 11 am – 5 pm, Aug. 3, at the Kitsap Conference Center Fountain Room, 100 Washington Ave., Bremerton.
Learn more at BremertonZineFest.com, or on the fest’s Facebook or Instagram profiles.
