Young Writers Zine Project

Over the course of 3 days in June 2022 at Ribbonwood Centre in Dapto, the South Coast Writers Centre brought a group of budding young artists and writers together to work with writing and design professionals to create, design and publish their own Zines!

Alongside Young Writers Program teacher Rhys Lorenc, and artist and designer Imogen Ross, young writers Leni, Blake, Max, Matilda, Dash, Caprii and Tilly learned about the connection between writing and art, and participated in illustration and design workshops. The group produced two zines: The Place of a Thousand Zines (where their writing, as the primary focus, was enhanced by illustration) and Look Twice (where writing was embedded into the design and art).

Zine Creation Process

Day 1

Day 1 was focused around developing writing skills; in the workshops, students talked about structures of writing and put this into practice. On this day students based their writing on the concept of change, exploring Physical Change, Emotional Change, Global Change and Transformation.

Day 2

Day 2 saw students learn about the interaction between images and words. In the workshops, students learnt about different art techniques and mediums used in Zines and began to experiment with them. They then explored emotional drawing, the illustration of emotions and words and lastly, representational drawings through creating pictures of seeds growing into trees.

Day 3

On Day 3, students began to put their zines together. They were encouraged to think of the ‘big picture’ and consider what they wanted their finished zine to look like. As a result, students edited their work and made decisions about what they wanted to include in the final zines.

The Zines were launched by SCWC Director Sarah Nicholson at Dapto Library on 23 July. As well as the physical copies of the Zines, there were digital projections, and a display that allowed patrons to get a closer look at the details of the creative process of how each child contributed their art from draft writing and creativity experimentation to the final works.

The launch event was a wonderful experience with teachers Imogen Ross and Rhys Lorenc explaining the process and young writers reading aloud from their work to a warmly receptive crowd that included many extended families.

School packs of the zines and instructional “how to” info were returned with the young authors to Lakelands Public School, Holy Spirit College, Keira High School, Mount Brown Primary School and Bulli Public School.

From the works produced, it is clear that these young creatives gained insight into how creative work becomes a published piece. One of the young writers exclaimed that being published was a “bucket list” experience and he was proud to be already able to tick it off his list.

A special thank you to NSW Ports whose funding allowed this program to happen.