Photograph courtesy of Warda Mustafa-Quintana
For artist Warda Mustafa-Quintana, the benefits of making zines are twofold (pun intended).
Professionally, the content educates people on important matters, like community engagement, which is key in Mustafa-Quintana’s visitor services role at a national museum and cultural organization for civil and human rights. Personally, it’s a great way to share Mustafa-Quintana’s family stories and Colombian and Palestinian history.
“It’s nice to be able to use the zines to talk about that journey,” Mustafa-Quintana says. “Zines are easy to create and use as a form of self-expression that you can share with others.”
Zine culture has been around for decades. The term zine refers to a self-published magazine-type publication, usually covering a certain topic and made in a do-it-yourself style with paper, a photocopier, and a stapler.
This October brings Book//Zine, an inaugural art publication and zine fair, at Goat Farm. Expect vendors, programming, and dozens of indie publishers, small presses, writers, and artists from Atlanta and the greater South.
Those who’ve bopped around the city’s DIY arts scene long enough may remember the Atlanta Zine Library, Atlanta Zine Fest, or events at Murmur gallery in South Downtown (RIP). Of course, other groups have cropped up to continue bringing together zine fans and creators: Atlanta Zine Club, ATL Radical Art Collective, and atlfreefair, to name a few.
Book//Zine is hosted by Burnaway, an Atlanta-based nonprofit publication for contemporary art and criticism from the American South and the Caribbean. Burnaway saw an opportunity to showcase a region’s worth of print-based artists and creators at a scale seen only in cities like Chicago, New York, and L.A.
“It’s not your typical market,” says Brandon Sheats, executive director at Burnaway. “Every single vendor is connected to producing things on paper, which is remarkable.”
Most vendors will be from Georgia and neighboring states. “We were very intentional about making sure that this was geographically diverse, so that we were able to reflect the entire region, as opposed to just Atlanta,” he adds.
This resurgence of print-focused art and media represents a trend writ large across the country, as more people seek forms of entertainment and creative expression outside of algorithms and digital platforms.
“A zine feels very analog; it’s something you can touch and hold,” says Tazza Moon, a local artist, zine maker, and creator of Paper Hearts Zine Fest.
Sarah Martin, owner of queer-centered sexual wellness shop Kiss & Ride in Little Five Points, loves seeing people discover zines in her shop. “A ton of people come in to this space who have never heard of zines,” Martin says. “They get really jazzed about them. They’re also a great way to offer bite-sized information to get people involved in different movements.”
With so much of the city’s outside notoriety coming from musicians and entertainers, Sheats says events like this are an important reminder that artists and makers are also a huge part of what makes Atlanta a creative mecca.
The enduring power of zines may also lie in accessibility. “A lot of art forms can be intimidating,” says Suhani Patel, an artist and member of the ATL Radical Art Collective, along with Mustafa-Quintana. “Anyone can make art. You just have to find what works for you, and zines are a really accessible way to do that.”
This article appears in our October 2025 issue.
