Your Creativity's Two Best Friends

And a Zine Making Workshop!

Jun 24, 2025

Examples of zines made from a single sheet of paper.

Since you-know-who (and his minions) decided to bomb Iran on Saturday night, our political situation has felt next-level-worrisome. Like he’s literally breaking the world order without the least understanding of the ramifications of his actions.

And yes, there’s a lot terribly wrong with the world order, but he seems especially focused on breaking the parts that work.

While we both already know that about him, some days the drunk at the end of the bar does something so horrible or stupid that you’re left staring at the mess thinking, “Good Gaia, what next?”

Which is why I thought I’d take a minute to talk about my Zine-Making workshop happening this Wednesday, June 25, at 4pm Mountain Time.

Because every time I feel helpless in the face of seriously dark shit, I am reminded why doing something both creative and concrete makes a difference.

Personal Power

As I’ve mentioned before, being creative actually increases your personal agency.

This is a short sentence, but a huge truth, so I’d love it if you’d let that sink in.

Because being creative doesn’t simply give you access to your agency, or give you a sense of your agency. Being creative literally increases your agency—in the same way lifting weights builds your muscles.

For instance, when you build your muscles, it changes your body and what you are capable of, which changes who you are. The same is true about creativity—but for your mind, emotions, and spirit.

Developing your creativity makes you stronger as a person, and therefore, more resilient. It helps you trust your own ability to think and solve problems. When you learn how creative you are, it’s like you become your own leader because you’re not afraid to take independent action.

In essence, your creativity connects you to your sovereignty.

This truism—that creativity increases your personal agency and connects you to your sovereignty—is actually its superpower.

Increasing your agency—your personal power—matters more than ever in a political time like this one. And using your creativity as part of your political activism—however big or small—invigorates that work with a playfulness and originality that shifts your energy from being re-active to being pro-active.

That’s what’s so fun about the wide variety of handmade signs at the protests. They express so much humor, insight, and cleverness that it brings joy into a heavy situation. It also highlights everyone’s individuality through the lens of shared values, which builds a sense of community.

And that’s what I’m trying to do in these Creative Change-Makers zoom calls—offering simple ways for you to use and enjoy your creativity in a political context. To counter the online propaganda machines by reaching out to other humans through simple physical objects that are themselves expressions of your own humanity.

What Are Zines and How Will We Make One?

The definition of a zine (pr. zeen) is “an inexpensively produced, often handmade, self-published, underground publication.”

I love those punk rock origins, but nowadays, zines run the gamut from punky to wacky to political to refined and beautiful.

There are also many styles of zines. In this zoom workshop, we’re going to make a couple-three zines in the simplest way possible—from single sheets of regular printer paper.

First, I’m going to show you a couple of finished zines I’ve made, as well as some zines-in-progress. I’ll explain how they are folded and how to play with your text in simple ways that can make your little book fun and “zine-y.” (In artspeak, we call that marrying content and form.) And you’ll be able to easily use these suggestions whether you think you’re all thumbs or you’re a seasoned artist.
I’ll then walk you through each folding step using a little political zine that I made to serve as our example. I will email that file to you before class so you can print it out and follow along. This way, when you are done folding, you will have a finished zine in your hands that you can keep or put out in the world somewhere.
Because that folding process won’t take very long, we’ll then fold another blank sheet of paper into the zine shape to help you remember how to do it. And then we’ll start creating— adding words and/or images to our little blank zines—and see how far we get. I can answer questions and help you over any hurdle.
To create your own zine, you will need to come prepared with one or two sentences that are meaningful to you. You might pick an important political fact that you want people to be more aware of, or maybe you have a favorite few lines of poetry, or a special quote you find meaningful.
It will also be helpful to have something to “decorate” your pages with—photos, images you cut out of a magazine or from the internet, or markers, paints, or colored pencils.

You’ll probably make mistakes and want to start over, but that’s super great because you’ll increase your muscle memory about how to fold the paper and also realize how easy it is to quickly create a mini zine.

If you don’t feel creative at all or have zero ideas, remember that folding a piece of paper into a zine IS a creative act, so you will have increased your creativity by creating a thing in the world—a tiny book form—from another thing in the world—a piece of paper.

And your zine doesn’t have to be political. You can practice your zine-making skills by glueing down photos of your kids or grandkids on each page, or images from your last vacation, or of what’s blooming in your garden right now.

I’ll also give you all my cutting-with-scissors tips and tricks for getting your text on the page in the most low-tech way possible—so don’t forget your glue stick.

The point of these zines is that they are creative and human, not slick and polished, but feel free to make your zine as refined or beautiful or business-like as you please. The world is your oyster.

At the end, we’ll share our progress with each other, talk about how to reproduce our zines, and discuss how and where we might want to share them in the world. Single-sheet zines are traditionally just folded, but I’ll also show you how they look glued and trimmed and you can decide how you prefer your zine to look.

Easy-peasy.

See, it’s fun to make guerilla art!

*NOTE: If you’re an artist, please feel free to bring your orphaned drawings and half-finished messes that didn’t work out and we’ll fold those into zines—I love doing that with my wayward cast offs because it gives them a new life. Turning them into a tiny zine makes them into a mini sketchbook where you can continue to play with them and perhaps even make them better.

How to Join In

The class is free for my paid subscribers, and that’s only 36.00 for an annual subscription, and entitles you join in on any other Creative Change-Makers calls throughout the year. When you upgrade, you’ll get a link to register for the call in the welcome email.

You can ponder your options or upgrade by clicking the button directly below:

If you’re already a paid subscriber, just register for the class by clicking the link in the top header or footer of this email.

I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, June 25, at 3pm Pacific, 4pm Mountain, 5pm Central or 6pm Eastern!