photo credit: Michelle Marques
Exhibitor Rayona Lovely Wilson shares a zine at the 2025 Santa Rosa Zine Fest

The Santa Rosa Zine Fest is back this Saturday, May 3rd. Co-hosted by the Sonoma County Library and the Santa Rosa Zine Collective, it's a free, outdoor fair celebrating the D-I-Y ethos and connecting self-publishing writers and artists of all ages.

The term zine comes from the word “magazine” and many are made out of a single piece of cleverly folded paper.

“I think our first in-person event had about 20 zine makers exhibiting. About half from Sonoma County and half from elsewhere in Northern California. We've grown by about 20 zine makers every year,” said co-founder Chelsea Kurnick. 

This year, over 80 zine makers will be sharing their work in the parking lot of the Northwest Library in Santa Rosa. Kurnick says zines are a great form of self-expression, and there's all kinds at this event.

“We have somebody who is a first-time participant who's bringing a zine that is a beginner's guide to mending your own clothes. And so it's a how-to, it's instructing on something that's super useful and meaningful to the person who made the zine,” explained Kurnick. “Another person who's going to be leading a zine making workshop. They're a Latina artist from the Bay Area and they write about being goth, they write about their Latina heritage and they've done food zines, like food memory zines.”

She says Zine Fest is a great way to connect with other creatives and learn new skills. There will be workshops on zine making, screen printing, and more.

“We always have teen participants and this year we have a workshop from the students who are in Analy High School's Ethnic Studies class who did an identity-focused zine-making project in school,” Kurnick said. “They will have a table and be exhibiting at the event with zines made by students in that class. And they'll also be facilitating with their instructor a workshop on how to make your own zine about identity.”

Kurnick says there’s no gatekeeping to this form of art, as more traditional art spaces tend to favor those with art degrees or art that is more mainstream. She says it is also a place where marginalized voices can be heard.

“When self-expression is under attack, when immigrant communities are under attack, when trans people are under attack, when so many identities that our zine community consists of and celebrates are being directly harmed by our government. There's definitely a like ferocity that comes out in the political work. Just a tighter sense of community,” said Kurnick.

The Santa Rosa Zine Fest is free and open to all ages. It runs from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 3rd at the Northwest Santa Rosa Library. There are also events on Wednesday and Friday leading up to the main event. For more information, visit @SantaRosaZineFest on Instagram.

2025 Santa Rosa Zine Fest Recap

The 2025 Santa Rosa Zine Fest took over the parking lot at Northwest Santa Rosa Library this past weekend. It was a vibrant celebration of creativity and community, featuring handmade, self-published zines.

A zine is defined as a small, self-published work with original or appropriated texts and images, often produced in limited quantities using photocopying.

Melissa Andrade is a member of the Santa Rosa Zine Collective and event organizer. She says the annual event is growing larger each year.

“Every year we are in awe of the artists that show up, who table, and then the community response. People are really excited this year, and you can feel it,” said Andrade.

"I have seen such a huge, beautiful range of zines. I've seen like diaristic, personal zines. I've seen collaborative zines. Some with just like incredibly beautiful, vibrant drawings. I saw someone who made like zines and journals using photography. Some of which was printed as like cyanotype. Paintings over cyanotypes. Amazing political expression,” said co-organizer Chelsea Kurnick.

One of the highlights of the event was the participation of students from Analy High School, who created zines as part of their ethnic studies and global studies classes. 

“For the ethnic study students, the topic is identity and belonging,” said teacher Rachel Ambrose. “And so, all of the Zines somehow relate to that theme, and it's a great way for them to engage in self-expression and kind of teach others about themselves and share a little piece of themselves, maybe be a little bit vulnerable.”

Ambrose shows me a Zine made by one of her students, titled People You See In Sebastopol.

“This one right here is a student who – This is the way she put it, ‘I had a zine phase, Miss Ambrose.’ She was not kidding. So, this one is just tremendous. And she said that this is going to be the first of many versions she's going to do, one each year from now on for this festival. So, I'm super excited ‘cause she's only in ninth grade,” Ambrose said. “So, this will be something she does all through high school and maybe into college and beyond.”

After I pick up my Zine, I talk with a few Analy High students about their work, including Theo.

“I kind of just drew like a representation of my emotions and how they feel up towards me and how I like, how I feel personalized and connected with my emotions,” said Theo. “I felt really nice like letting it out on paper, you know, to truly feel how I feel without judgment. It's very calming and healing for me.”

San Jose artist Julie Cardenas had a selection of zines featuring illustrated recipes.

“I capture recipes from my parents who are both Mexican and Peruvian Americans,” explained Cardenas. “I tell stories about the food that they made us and I try to capture it through watercolor, ink, print making. It's kind of a living record of their story into the United States and their legacy in my life.”

Some zines were more focused on writing.

“My name is Rayona Lovely Wilson and I'm an author in Sonoma County. I write a lot of young adult and new adult books about like overcoming trauma or dealing with sexuality or bullying and trying to overcome that with therapy since you know in the black community that was frowned upon as a child, but I try to like highlight that and like asking for help,” said Wilson. “I am actually working on my Zine. I've been working on it all morning. It's not done yet, but it's about Oh, and we do have actually, we do have one about my fear of butterflies. And this one is about reducing your stress and anxiety, how meditating helps with that. I turned some of the writing into blackout poetry and basically you just write something and then you find words that create another poem inside of your writing.”

The Santa Rosa Zine Fest featured over 80 exhibitors and hundreds of attendees.