INTERVIEW: Anna May and the 518's Developing Zine Culture
Photos by Eric Turner
“I’m tired of algorithms. I’m tired of social media censorship. Zines can be anything you want them to be.”
Zines have been around for as long as home printers; some readers will recall them along with the halcyon days of youth in a pre-pandemic world. Others, increasingly, will associate them with a post-social media, anti-establishment middle youth baked uniquely in our contemporary time. The Capital Region, as always, mimics a larger trend and finds itself operating in a loop. The hardcore print-outs of the past are back — a new crop of nihilists have traded trench coats for twee fits and dead Gods for empathy.
Alongside Albany Center Gallery’s recent Summer Art Fest, Robert Cooper and Joshua Gruft came together to build an ancillary Zine Fest: Autwine, Sanctum, Petty Magazine, and Dee Holloway all had a presence, as did local poet Anna May. Anna can be found out on Lark Street or reciting her remarkably biting poetry in downtown Troy. She can also be found at the Albany Public Library on Thursday nights, running the Albany Zine Club.
This ever-shifting group of a dozen or so have been meeting since January 2025 to collage, create, and collaborate. Anna chose to start the club from a “somewhat selfish” place: “I wanted to meet other people who were interested in zines because I’m seriously obsessed and I just want to talk about them all of the time. And, why not?
“I’m tired of algorithms. I’m tired of social media censorship. Zines can be anything you want them to be. They’re low-cost, a quick way to share your writing/art/collage ideas with the world,” Anna says of the medium. She’s been exploring it on her own, producing a multi-volume series Painsomniac, which details her experiences of thought and discomfort while dealing with medical issues. In the pages are diary entries and playlists for specific moments. Keeping them on a table is impossible.
Anna is now sharing the love: “As a club, we came together to create a collaborative zine. The theme is I KNOW MY FRIENDS’ ART WILL SAVE ME and it features poetry, collage, and other art from eight zine club members. It was a lot of fun assembling the zine and seeing how everyone interpreted the theme.”
The piece is a testament to the arts culture that we strive to support. The communal love and shared expression oozes from the pages. This is not art of the ego but art of the all; the kind of craft that can only be born of a community who want, desperately, to be together. The world of Zine Club is not free of existential threat, but warm in the face of it.
What can save you if not your friend's art?
Anyone paying enough attention will find loneliness throughout the Albany area. Constant posts on Reddit complain about the difficulty of meeting new people; dating apps populate and repopulate; social media feeds light up for a moment, a party, and fall back apart. For the middle youth – the post college, pre-retirement, never-going-to-afford-a-house crowd – this is, the news argues, an epidemic.
Zine Club has found a sort of cure, and the community is demonstrably better for it. Zine Club members, inappropo of this write-up, have told me happily that the meetings have helped them to find voice and kinship. For writers, this is sometimes impossible to achieve. For Anna May, this is a clear goal.
“As much as possible,” says Anna, “I try to plan Zine Club-related events in the city of Albany, specifically. I love Troy, but I’m an Albany girl at heart. I love Albany and I want there to be a wide variety of creative events in the city. I think it’s also important as a way to bring people together who otherwise might not meet to learn from one another and maybe collaborate on creative projects.”
If you could use a bit of saving, if you’re simply interested in what zines can be and/or how to make them, head to the Bach branch of the Albany Public Library and find the Zine Club. They will happily take you in.