Nancy Bonnell-Kangas,
Nancy's Magazine

Age: 36

Selections: "Hide-and-Seek," by Tom Kangas (page 53); "Train Chaser," by Mark Reinhart (page 155); "Neglected Topics" (page 170)

Recent review (from Zine-O-File): "Its theme changes every issue, but whatever the subject, this lovely, well-curated theme zine is in itself worth many, many hours of rapt fixation."

Sample: $4 from P.O. Box 02108, Columbus, OH 43202 (checks: Nancy's Magazine)

Why publish a zine?
It's part of my plan to change the world. I'm starting with the magazine industry.

What can you tell us about the selection you provided for "The Book of Zines"?
When I did "Neglected Topics," I was trying to graduate from college and desperately petitioning to have all my phys ed credits at my old college count for physics at the new one, etc. What I never admitted to any school advisor was how little I felt I knew about anything—and how I felt the world was bursting with little pockets of as-yet unexaminedness.

Any general tips for aspiring zinesters?
Never let somebody give you a pile of money for a zillion-issue subscription. You might die, or she might die, before you can fulfill the promise. And then things would get all messy about who owes what to whose heirs. Accept short term (one or two issues) subscriptions and encourage lavish donations. I know the whole idea behind magazines is that they're serial—that they go on and on, but it works better if you do every issue as if it were your last.

What's your favorite part of doing a zine?
It's a tie between the exhilaration at the very very beginning, when I'm thinking up what to put in it, and the tedious but quiet thrill of drawing little tiny drawings.

In my other life, I'm a:
Mother of two sons and a person who works at the library and writes poems.