Sugar Hijinx, the perzine distro I run with my bud Cynthia will be back at Ridman’s Coffee in Andersonville on Sunday, July 26th!

Just like last time, our zine shop will be open from 12 to 3 p.m., and we’ll be co-hosting a free zinemaking hangout with Zine Club Chicago from 3 to 5 p.m.

Shout out to Danielle and Ryan at Ridman’s, who hosted our first event back in March! We are so excited to be back there, at a woman & black-owned coffee shop at the intersection of Uptown, Andersonville & Ravenswood.

Get ready for the next CHIRP Music Trivia Night, on Tuesday, July 21 at Beermiscuous with a sporty night of Jock Jamz! Moizza will be toughly testing your athletic aural acumen, while I’ll be your DJ, pumping you up with some sonically sweat-soaked sports songs. The irony is not lost on me that I am the last person to know anything about the sportsball games the rest of masses are into, but I do love me some preposterous over the top ridiculous motivational anthems.

From World Cup anthems to the Superbowl Shuffle, we'll do five rounds focused on music to get jacked to at the Jock Jamz Music Trivia! The games begin at 7pm at Beermiscuous, located at 2812 North Lincoln Avenue. For more information, visit the CHIRP Radio events page here.

The fine folks at the Kim-Park Program for the Study of the Book at the University of Chicago asked me back to do another zine workshop at the Regenstein Library, and it’s open to the public. I had such a nice time doing a workshop at the Regenstein for the Feria del Libro Chicago event in May, so I am excited to come back. Join me on July 16th from 2-3:30pm.

They have some of my zines in their Special Collections (check it out, catalogued in their library here). Someone took the time to catalogue my work with call numbers and everything. Archivists, librarians, cataloguers and information science professionals doing the lord’s work to preserve!

I’m pretty sure the way more zines ended in the zine collection at U of Chicago is because of the most excellent André G. Wenzel, who back in the early 2013 recruited me to be part of the My Life is an Open Book: D.I.Y. Autobiography exhibit that they curated at The Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery. They also recruited me to write about zines in Chicago for a 2013 issue of the Caxtonian: Journal of the Caxton Club. One day I’ll post what I wrote somewhere. When I manufacture more time, that is! In any case, it is an honor to be back at that Special Collections department, and the folks that are keeping that place going have been so kind to me.

I’m pasting in what they said on their website so that I’m not reinventing the wheel about the event, but before I do so, I should say it is worth going and looking at the actual event listing because they did a really wonderful job of displaying some of my early zines with cataloguing info and listing me as “Collections Contributor” which is pretty excellent.

The Kim-Park program is excited to present a hands-on zine making workshop with facilitator Liz Mason.

Learn about these easy-to-produce and often ephemeral works, and make your own zine to take with you. All workshop materials will be provided free of charge.

Pictured Zines are by Liz Mason and are a part of the Regenstein Library's collection of Zines and are housed in the Special Collections Research Center.

This event is open to all with registration and will be held in The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center in Regenstein Library.

Visitors to the University of Chicago Library without a university ID may obtain an entry pass by checking in at Regenstein Library’s entry desk and presenting a current, government-issued photo ID, such as a driver’s license, CityKey, state ID, or passport to confirm identity. Get more visitor information.

More info at https://ZineWKSHP.eventbrite.com.

See you on July 16th!

I’ll be at the Midwest Perzine Fest (MWPZF), tabling with perzine distro Sugar Hijinx that I run with one of my besties Cynthia E. Hanifin. This fest has a special place in my heart. Both MWPZF and the fest that inspired it, the Dear Diary Zine Fest, are fests devoted to perzines, as in “personal zines",” which feature personal narratives, creative non-fiction before it was a genre with a popular name — the proverbial “ranting and raving” associated with zines, what I try to capture with my zines like Caboose, which I’ve been doing since 2002, or Cul-de-sac, which my childhood friend Julie and I started in the 90s and still sometimes publish these days.

MWPZF and Dear Diary inspired me and Cynthia to start Sugar Hijinx specifically to highlight zines that are heavier on writing. As writers ourselves, we wanted to give the zines we love the most an extra signal boost and because we love building relationships with writers, since they are our people. We curated a nice collection of Sugar Hijinx titles from people like Keidra Chaney, Jordan Sea, Katie Kiesewetter, Billy McCall, Krystal Ratticus, Aaron Cometbus and more. And yes, we love art zines, mini-comics and all that too (we even carry comics artists that are writing-heavy, like John Porcellino of King-Cat Comix and Carrie McNinch of You Don’t Get There From Here). But our jam is that we’re about stuff where writing is the main focus.

We intentionally don’t have a storefront or a place to sell these zines on the web. We only table at things like fests and pop-ups, often team up Zine Club Chicago, and we’re in the process of fixing up a trike to make it be a truly portable situation. For more info about SHJX & all the stuff we’re doing, see instagram.com/sugarhijinx.

More info about MWPZF at midwestperzinefest.wordpress.com + instagram.com/midwestperzinefest

This is your official invitation to our pre-fest reading hosted by my former place of employment Quimby’s Boosktore (aka the best bookstore in the world) and featuring readings from me, Jonas, Angel and more!

Meet, connect, and nosh with other perzinesters from around the Midwest and beyond! Vegan & gluten free snacks and beverages will be available! Bring YOUR perzine and sign up for a slot to read too!

Then see you the next day at the Chicago Athletic Association for Midwest Perzine Fest (MWPZF) where I will be tabling with Cynthia E. Hanifin as our perzine distro Sugar Hijinx.

More info about MWPZF at quimbys.com + midwestperzinefest.wordpress.com + instagram.com/midwestperzinefest

That’s right! 🪩 Hang out with me for a quarter of your day. I've got one more 6 hour radio show marathon on CHIRP Radio 107.1FM (Chicago Independent Radio Project) while I fill in for the DJ who comes after me in addition to my usual 3 hours. Wednesday, July 8th from 6am to noon CT. 📻 Ways to tune in and listen: 107.1FM on the dial • chirpradio.org • the CHIRP Radio app • Or tell yr smart speaker “Play CHIRP Radio.”

Coming up! Fri, June 26th and Sat, June 27th catch me at the Zine Pavilion at the ALA  Conference! I'll be tabling both as me and also as Sugar Hijinx perzine distro. Somehow I'm gonna smush it all onto half a table for a couple hours on Friday and a whole day on Saturday. Come say hi!

Info for when and where I’ll be there:

Friday, June 26: 5:30pm - 7:00pm
Saturday, June 27: 9:00am - 5:00pm

Location: McCormick Place, Exhibit Hall F / Zine Pavilion (Booth #2448)

#ALAAC26 
More info at https://2026.alaannual.org/

There’s no way I can say this any better than the way Cynthia wrote it at the Zine Club Chicago site, so I’ll just paste it in here! My Zine Doctor role is resurfacing for this one!

We’re thrilled to announce our brand-new Southwest Side Zine Library! This free community resource, stocked with self-published titles of all kinds, will be permanently housed at the Archer Heights branch of the Chicago Public Library.

Please join us to celebrate at our Southwest Side Zine Library Launch Party, 2-4 p.m. Saturday, May 23 at the Archer Heights branch, 5055 S. Archer Ave! Folks of all ages are invited to peruse the zine library, make zines, Ask the Zine Doctor (aka our own Liz Mason), enjoy snax, and more. Free!

If you’re new to the Archer Heights neighborhood, the library is just northwest of the Pulaski stop on the Orange Line. More info on our socials: @zineclubchicago

Zine newbies and longtime enthusiasts alike are always welcome at Zine Club Chicago. This free community event series is produced by founder Cynthia E. Hanifin. If you’re in the Bridgeport neighborhood, please visit our South Side Zine Library at the Richard J. Daley branch of the Chicago Public Library, 3400 S. Halsted St.

Thank you to the staff of the Archer Heights branch of the Chicago Public Library and all of our friends who donated materials for the Southwest Side Zine Library. We’d like to give a special shout out to Anna Jo Beck, who created the Southwest Side Zine Library logo with artistic inspiration from Mexican papel picado and Polish wycinanki.

Image description: A green-and-orange flyer with an image of the Southwest Side Zine Library logo, a pair of scissors, and this text: “Southwest Side Zine Library Launch Party!; 2-4 p.m. Saturday, May 23; Archer Heights Branch of the Chicago Public Library; 5055 S. Archer Ave; Peruse the zine library! Make your own zine! Ask the Zine Doctor! Enjoy snax! And more!; @zineclubchicago; chipublib.org

More info here at zineclubchicago.com.

Join the Kim-Park Program for the Study of the Book for a drop-in, family-friendly and hands-on zine making workshop I’m facilitating as a part of Feria del Libro Chicago.

Learn more about these easy-to-produce and often ephemeral works, and make your own zine to take with you!

More info here. And here too.

Celebrate National Library Week with me at the Chicago State University Archives and Special Collections on the 3rd floor of CSU’s Gwendolyn Brooks Library! I’ll talk about zines, what they are, and then we’ll make some in an hour! More info here.

This semester I am a practicum student in the archive! (Don’t know what a practicum is? It’s like an internship. I have to do it for my Archives and Records Management specialization while in library school at CSU.) I’ve done some cool things there while under the guidance of Chicago State University Archivist and Assistant Professor Kheir Fakhreldin. Read about my experience at my blog here!

On Tuesday, April 21st, CHIRP Music Trivia will be “Makin’ Trouble” at Beermiscuous, with questions covering songs about crime, vice, and delinquency. From playing dice in the alley, to sipping goof syrup and beyond, test your knowledge of bad habits straight out of the cell block with host Liz Mason (that’s me!), and DJ moimoi spinning tunes. And it’s the day after 420, so you know, come on. It all goes down on your permanent record at 7pm. Beermiscuous is located at 2812 North Lincoln Avenue. For more information, visit the event listing here at chirpradio.org.

Flip through a curated selection of zines, then make your own on March 29th with me and Cynthia Hanifin of Zine Club Chicago! 🖤☕️ We’re starting a zine distro called Sugar Hijinx that only tables at events, doesn’t do mail order and only focuses on perzines (as in personal zines). Join us for a zine pop-up and then a zinemaking hang at one of our favorite coffee shops, Ridman’s, who focuses on delicious coffee and community. More info here.

—

Or maybe you want the description we put on Instagram? Because honestly, Cynthia wrote it way better than I did:

Got a sweet tooth for perzines? Don’t miss the very first event by Sugar Hijinx, Chicago’s brand-new zine distro! 🍭✂️

We’ll be popping up on Sunday, March 29 at @ridmanscoffee, 4758 N. Clark St. Our zine shop will be open from 12 to 3 p.m., and we’ll be co-hosting a free zinemaking hangout with @zineclubchicago from 3 to 5 p.m.

Drop in anytime to browse some great titles and make zines with us! You might get the chance to meet some of the artists whose work we’ll be featuring, as well.

Sugar Hijinx is a Chicago-based pop-up distro specializing in perzines. Our selection is curated by Liz Mason @caboosezine (Caboose) and Cynthia E. Hanifin @exilefromguyville (Zine Club Chicago). Watch this space for more event announcements soon!

#gettingthebandbacktogether #zines #DIY #SugarHijinx #ZineClubChicago

Workshop at the Native!

Thrilled to be doing a zine workshop at @thenativechicago! Feb 11th, 8-10pm! Join us to make a collaborative mutual aid zine, or make your own zine for resistance! Liz Lane @moderngirl773 spins songs of speaking truth to power all night!

Music goes until 1 AM. Bring some friends and hope to see ya there!

It’s a 2 Liz night!

No cover. 21+.

#chicagodj #chicagomusic #zinemaking #logansquare #zines

Making Zines, Making Change: A Conversation about Collaborating, Publishing, Selling, and Archiving DIY Art is a panel I’ll be on, with scholar-teacher (and head of the Factsheet Five Archive Project) Jason Luther with other Chicago and Milwaukee-area artists, authors, publishers, and archivists, including Kirsten Leenaars, Marc Fischer, Milo Miller. It’s at the Haggerty Museum is at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

All are welcome. Registration is free and strongly encouraged/much appreciated, which you can do here. This panel is the first (of three) opening events for Artifact, the 8th annual Writing Innovation Symposium. This event is inspired by the symposium as well as the Spring '26 Haggerty Museum of Art exhibitions Declaration of _____ and Let the Real World In.

I should also mention that I’ll be there a little early, around 4:30 to sell some zines too, so if for example, you don’t have the new Caboose I put out last year and you wanna get it in person instead of here at my Etsy store, here’s your chance.

Making Zines, Making Change is made possible by the Haggerty Museum of Art and Marquette English/FAME as well as the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Lemonis Center for Student Success along with long-time WIS partners Raynor Library and Macmillan Learning.

On Tuesday, January 20th, CHIRP Music Trivia is getting Snowed In, with this month featuring Songs About Winter! Warm up with Thursday afternoon DJ Alex Gilbert as he brings you five rounds of snowy songs, frosty facts, and cold weather questions while I DJ some snowy tunes, and I did a pretty deep dive. Trivia takes place at Beermiscuous, located at 2812 North Lincoln Avenue, and the questions start at 7pm. Bring a friend, and start the new year off with some CHIRP Music Trivia!

More info here: https://chirpradio.org/events/chirp-music-trivia-snowed-in

I’ll be in conversation with John R. Davis about his amazing book Keep Your Ear to the Ground: A History of DC Punk Fanzines, at my former place of employment, Quimby’s Bookstore at 1854 W. North Ave here in Chicago.

John published the zines Slanted and Held Like Sound. (His zine publishing career started with soliciting $10 ads from Simple Machines and cold calling Guy Picciotto from Fugazi for an interview). He was also the drummer for the Dischord band Q and Not U. Most importantly however, he heads up the Punk Oral History Project at the Special Collections in Performing Arts at the University of Maryland’s Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library where he is the curator. I’m excited to talk to him about this book, his archive of DC punk zines and his former career as a Kinko’s employee.

Get more info about this event at the Quimby’s website here.