Zine Review: Pieces #1 On Writing, Reading & Growing Up

Pieces #1 On Writing, Reading & Growing Up
Nichole
http://wemakezines.ning.com/profile/Nichole
https://www.etsy.com/shop/fictionandnot

This zine (and #2-#5) came through a trade I made a few years ago thanks to the We Make Zines site. Nichole prefers trades to outright sales, so my financially-challenged self was quite happy.

I had a good feeling that I would like this first one because I am an author (and was back when I made the trade, too) and love a lot of things that are writing-related. This zine did not disappoint.

Pieces takes a ‘snippets of life’ approach to her zine with, well, snippets of her life. Bits and pieces that surround reading, writing, authors and what it means to grow up as a creative person. She does skip around in time – jumping forward and back – but chronology doesn’t matter as much as the feelings of the scenes involved. While my glitchy self would have loved chronology, my free love hippie self was happy to go with the flow.

What was even better is how many experiences Nichole and I had in common. For instance, I also wrote for Young Authors when I was in school. I also started using British spellings in school only to be told a resounding no. (Yay for moving to Australia and putting extra letters in all sorts of words! Colour!) While she was not allowed to read at the table, I was not allowed to write. But we were both convinced (if only a little bit) that the characters would get up to something while we were away.

We’ve even both met Garth Nix.

I won’t give it away, but the zine ends on an exhilarating (especially if you’ve done it yourself) note that leaves you wanting to know what happened next.