What we are up to

Mercy and FACT mentors for the next generation of zinesters!

09/11/09 Workshops
by Nathan Jones

On Thursday afternoon we're starting our three month zine mentoring project for a group of young people on FACT's Freehand programme.

The gist is that we'll run a few workshops with a core group of about ten young people, focussing on the voice, image, content, and style of a zine, how to print, market and distribute, and how to keep the quality contributions pouring in – then we'll leave them to it!

Over three issues of the, as yet unnamed, Freehand zine, we hope to move from advising on the nitty gritty, to helping the group work through the age-old challenges of editorship and printing on their own, to acting as a sounding board for their ideas, and eventually just standing back and glowing with pride at the beast we have created.

Although we have left our own printed zine on the backburner for now, we still have huge reverence for how it catalyzed so much creativity, and clients, for Mercy over our first few years - so it's a real pleasure to have this opportunity to pass this specialist knowledge on.

Most of all we hope we can harness the natural buzz of the young people at Freehand in the same way we did with our own creative folk back in the day – and help a new generation of poets, illustrators and creative wide-boys-and-girls find their feet.  

Who knows, maybe soon we'll have a little programme we can roll out for anyone else who's interested? Maybe we'll have some new competition on our doorstep?  

If we don't care, who will?

  • Date & Time : Thursday, November 12th at 4:30pm to Thursday, November 12th at 8:00pm
  • Venue : FACT, Wood Street, Liverpool, L1 4DQ