Zinester Interview with Pam Dailey: TheZINEasaurus

Posted on September 30, 2013

ABQ Zine Fest is MERE DAYS AWAY! From now until the fest, we’ll be highlighting some of the zinesters exhibiting at The Tannex, The Tan, and Small Engine Gallery on Saturday, October 5th. NEXT: Pam Dailey

Please tell us about the zines you’ll be tabling at ABQZF!

TheZINEsaurus is a personal zine. I share stories about my life and observations about the universe. It’s a sporadically produced zine; no regular schedule. I merge and express my love of words, writing, drawing, photography, story-telling, nature, science, animals, tape, glitter, glue, and paper.  With synonyms.  And sometimes antonyms. This is how I rejuvenate my soul. This year, I have three new full-size zines: Zine of the Apocalypse, Depression, and Road Trip. And I have three mini zines: Spring-Sprang-Sprung, Hygienic Ornamental Patterns, and Haiskoo. I’ll also have copies of my zines from the two previous years.

What do you say when someone asks you,  “What are zines?”

Zine is like ‘magazine’. They are little self-published collections of stories, images, photos, whatever. Zines started in the 70′s and 80′s as FanZines, publicity for people’s favorite bands. Now, they’ve evolved into being anything we want them to be. If you can think of it, somebody is writing a zine about it, somewhere. There are fiction zines, poetry zines, per-zines (like mine) where people share their personal lives and commentaries, stuff like that.

What’s the most challenging thing about zine making?

I find it hard to capture my ideas as they are floating by. I have tons of ideas, and I don’t always remember to write them down! I consciously make time for zine’ing every week. It soothes my soul.

How long have you been writing zines, and how did you get started?

I’ve been producing what could be called zines since the fall of 2011, when I did my first zine as part of the first ABQ Zine Fest weekend challenge. My background is in art, and I’ve been combining my sketches, photos, and other images with my words and thoughts since art school in college in the early 90′s.

What do you enjoy most about making zines?

I love it when my vision of what I want to create comes out as good as the image in my head. And I love it when the words in the thesaurus I use teach me something more about life.

Roughly how many zines do you archive in your personal collection? 

Ummm…. three. four. something like that.

Do you have a zine crush? If so, are you willing to reveal the object of your zine affection?

Yes.

No.

So much of the written word we now experience via digital media. Why are zines important?

It’s so important to have the physicality of the zine in your hands. And for us creators to actually create, put pen to paper, so to speak. The visceral act of art and writing changes when it’s solely digital.

Thanks, Pam!