The Creative Change-Makers June Zoom:
A Zine-Making Workshop
Wednesday, June 25 2025 at 3pm Pacific, 4pm Mountain, 5pm Central, 6pm Eastern.
At this month’s Zoom gathering, I’ll be teaching you how to make a single-page ‘zine’ that you can scatter around your community.
Our emphasis will be on creating zines as acts of resistance, but really, you can make a zine about any topic you like.
The workshop will be about 90 minutes long, but come for as long as you like or are able.
What’s a zine you ask? Here are a few definitions from the interwebs:
"A ‘zine’ a small, self-published work that typically contains original or appropriated texts and images, often produced in limited quantities and shared within specific communities. They are usually created by individuals or small groups and emphasize personal expression over profit.”
“A zine is a noncommercial often homemade publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject matter.”
Zines are easy and fun and have endless creative possibilities. You make your zine as simple as possible by writing your thoughts on each ‘page’ of the zine ballpoint pen if that’s all you have, or you can go to town with markers and paint.
I will be creating a sample zine from one piece of paper for us to construct together (I’ll email you the image beforehand) and then we’ll talk about ways to combine words and text you can modify that one. And then I’ll walk you through constructing another one so it all sinks in.
This session is hands-on, so make some space for yourself to work on your computer table as we connect over zoom.
UPSHOT: f you have two pieces of paper, a pair of scissors and a writing implement, you have what you need to make a zine! If you have other art supplies, even better.
Start thinking now of what you want people to understand or a point you want to share that feels important. Defining an important word or phrase can be a great angle for creating a zine. For instance, define “authoritarian” or “police state.” Or use a fact from the current “big beautiful bill” —like the cuts to SNAP and how they might affect your community.
Zines created from one piece of paper are short, so you don’t need a lot of text. It also lets you play around with visuals—cut out images of the oligarchy or eyeballs or hands in handcuffs—and then it gives your words more impact.
Remember: These ideas don’t have to be unique—feel free to quote someone you follow like Robert Reich or HCR, or browse the internet for smart and hilarious signs from the protests of the last few months.
Making a zine is an act of creativity. And when you personally taking action—even in small ways like this—it has a big impact.
As always, this is a zero pressure event. You can’t do it wrong and you don’t need any talent.
This workshop is FREE for paid subscribers of The Pink Teacup.
I’d love for you to join us.
An annual subscription is 36.00 or you can sign up for a single month for 7.00.
If you are already a paid subscriber, you can register for the workshop in the header or footer of The Pink Teacup newsletter.
If you’d like to join us but are not yet a paid subscriber, click here to learn more or sign up.
Once you sign up as a paid subscriber, the welcome email will have a link for you to register for the zoom call.
I look forward to seeing you!
P.S. Read this BBC article on how tremendously successful non-violent demonstrations and activism can be.
—————————IN THE MEANTIME —————————
Here’s a list of other potential ideas for creative change-making to spark your imagination:
Print, paint, or sew a flag of resistance or solidarity that hangs outside your house or apartment window.
Write a zine about vote suppression that you casually leave on coffee shops tables.
Bake blue and yellow iced Ukrainian flag cookies that you bring to work for your right-wing coworkers to enjoy unbeknownst.
Make “did you know” single-fact flyers that you stick on car windshields in a grocery store parking lot.
Design a saucy bumper sticker, a righteous pin, or an audacious t-shirt that you share with like-minded souls.
Weave nature crowns or construct witches hats to wear with friends at your next protest—or plan a crown-making party where you’ll invite your local friends to come to your place to create them with you.
Paint handmade signs that are funny or wacky or graphic or gorgeous to bring to protests and share with folks who showed up without one.
Write a checklist of immigrant rights and legal aid numbers to leave at your library or local bodega and then make it fun and funky with weird fonts or pretty graphics or calligraphy. Or draw little hearts all over it.
Order custom “democracy” M&Ms or “Rule of Law” conversation heart candies and put them out at your PTA meeting or church coffee hour.
Choreograph a public dance project that celebrates reproductive rights.
Stitch a quilt to auction at a fundraiser for the displaced.
Make tiny protest messages that show up in unexpected places in your community—perhaps left in a grocery store shopping basket or taped to a bathroom stall at a rest stop or the gas station mini mart.
There is no wrong, no too small, no too wacky no too mundane. If it excites you, or feels fun, or, if you’re like me, it makes you involuntarily raise your eyebrows while you smile mysteriously, that’s all that matters.
