María Emerson is the Student Success Librarian in the Undergraduate Library at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She started working with zines at her previous institution at Augustana College, where she created a Social Justice Zine Collection, focusing on different social justice issues such as sexual abuse, racism, immigration issues, mental illness, and more. In María’s zine talk, she’ll discuss how zines challenge the idea of authority and credibility, draws attention to issues and experiences often overlooked in mainstream publications, and helps students realize they can be experts of their own lives. This event was part of the Humanities Research Institute's Zine Pedagogy Research Cluster capstone symposium.

Dawn Bohn, Associate Professor in Food Science & Human Nutrition, will speak about utilizing zines in the classroom as a tool for solving complex food science and ingredient technology challenges. The specific assignment asks students to create a zine about ingredient labels for foods often found at food pantries, highlighting the history, cultivation, use, application, safety, and cross-funtionality of selected ingredient categories. With the Eastern Illinois Foodbank and other food pantries as the intended audience, the goal of the zines is to help manage fear around confusing and ambiguous ingredient labels that can sometimes make food products seem less desirable. Using zines as a platform, students develop skills such as visual literacy, science communication, and creativity. This event was part of the Humanities Research Institutes's Zine Pedagogy Research Cluster capstone.

Mary Widdicks is a former psychologist turned novelist, freelance journalist, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu white belt. Her writing has been published in The Washington Post, Undark Magazine, Quartz, Elemental, Vox, X-R-A-Y Lit Magazine, and more. Her debut thriller series, The Mermaid Asylum, is available on Amazon. Raised near Portland, Oregon, Mary now lives in central Illinois where the tallest things for miles are the corn and the tales people have to make up to convince anyone to live there in the winter. She shares a perpetually shrinking house with her three kids, three dogs, and two cats, and has no excuse for any of it. Follow her at: http://marywiddicks.com Hi, I'm Andi! I'm a cartoonist based in Vermont who grew up in Southeast Asia and the Southwestern US, making horror/horror-comedy/YA comics for angsty teens and nostalgic adults.

Tonya Ingram is a poet, Cincinnati native, Bronx-bred introvert, mental health advocate, kidney transplant hopeful, Lupus legend, cat auntie, and lover of Tom Hardy and “The Office.” Tonya has graced the stages of The Getty Museum, Madison Square Garden, San Francisco Opera House, Nuyorican Poets Café, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lexus Verses and Flow’s variety show, and “The Price is Right*,” the online and physical pages of The New York Times, Vice i-D, Bustle, and Marie Claire, and the classrooms of schools in the United States and Ghana, just to name a few. her viral collaboration with BuzzFeed, “An Open Letter to My Depression,” has reached over 4 million views and counting. A friend, creative, daydreamer, and Virgo, Tonya’s writing explores the necessity in taking care of ourselves, especially on the days we feel unworthy. She is a graduate of New York University and Otis College of Art and Design. Tonya currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. HOW TO SURVIVE TODAY is her third book of poetry.

Michael Allen Rose is a Chicago based author, musician and performer. He has published several bizarro, horror and comic novels with various presses, been in a few anthologies, and also makes industrial music under the name Flood Damage. He has a Patreon which provides subscribers with a new zine or chapbook every month. He loves cats, good tea, great food, and his partner Sauda with whom he poses nude for art classes and performs burlesque with for money, not unlike some kind of poorly trained monkey. He is the host of the Ultimate Bizarro Showdown each year at Bizarro Con in Portland, Oregon, and is involved in many shenanigans. Find out more at www.gerbilprobe.com

Located in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, the CU Poetry Group is committed to building community and strong individual voices through the power and practice of poetry.

Rebecca Maree takes us through the zine library at the Independent Media Center in Urbana, Illinois.

Monty and Karen show off some work from our participants.

Explore part of the Undergraduate Library at the University of Illinois' International comic and graphic novels collection.