Joyce Hatton made her first zine 10 years ago… and then did nothing with it. But last December she was having a mental breakdown and expressing it through a zine was the only way she could think to express herself and Think About the Bubbles #1 was born. Since then she’s continued creating… Trust the Knife is #8, which she finished this month. When she was done with Trust the Knife she says she thought “…the same thought as when I made my first zine – ‘what now? I’m not white or punk, and zines are for white punks”. She soon discovered that zines were for everyone when she found the People of Color (POC) Zine Project, and with it found the community she wanted and desperately needed.
Joyce said in her letter to me: “I LOVE ZINES. I think some people in my life don’t get how zines have become a such a huge part of my life in under a year. To me, zines are the best way I can express complicated things, the funnest way to express simple things, and an amazing way to build community. I ended up becoming one of the Midwest Coordinators for the POC Zine Project, and I founded and organized the Fargo-Moorhead Zine Fest this year. It was great! Trust the Knife was a long time coming. In the zine I express things I was incapable of sharing with anyone else- either because no one in my life cared, would understand, or I was too afraid and confused. Making that zine was horrible. It was upsetting to relieve some of it, and to look back and see how fucked up my thinking was. But I made it, and I wanted to share that. And not just that I’d made it, but I’m a better person now because I had cancer. Posttraumatic growth is awesome! And it helps me to remember that there’s always something cool waiting on the other side.”
To learn more about Joyce:
www.facebook.com/TransformingMyMouthIntoAStrident
To learn more about the POC Zine Project:
www.facebook.com/POCZineProject
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Sensational story.