Special Guests
Demian DinéYazhi´
Demian Dinéyazhi’ is an indigenous Diné (Navajo) transdisciplinary artist living in the Indigenous Lands of the Multnomah/Clackamas tribes (Portland, Oregon). His work is rooted in Radical Indigenous Queer Feminist ideology, landscape representation, memory, HIV/AIDS-related art & activism, gender, identity, & sexuality, Indigenous Survivance, & Decolonization. He received his BFA in Intermedia Arts from Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2014. Demian is the founder & director of the artist / activist initiative, R.I.S.E.: Radical Indigenous Survivance & Empowerment, which is dedicated to the education, perseverance, & evolution of Indigenous art & culture. He is the recipient of the 2017 Brink Award; as well as grants from Evergreen State College (2014), PICA – Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (2014), Art Matters Foundation (2015).
Liz Prince
Liz Prince is a Portland, ME cartoonist known for her charming diary comics that share her experience in and out of relationships and the awkwardness of her adolescence, all with humor and honesty. Her autobio comic collections include Alone Forever (Top Shelf, 2014), Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir (Zest Books, 2014) named one of Kirkus Review’s best books of 2014, and Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed? (Top Shelf, 2005) which received the Ignatz for Outstanding Debut in 2005. Liz has written and drawn comics for all of your favorite Cartoon Network shows, and is the creator and writer of the new BOOM!Box series about paranormal punk rock, Coady and the Creepies.
All Exhibitors
A Queer Press | St. Louis, MO
Scrappy Midwest queers who like to make books and other assorted print ephemera
Amy Kenney | Kansas City, MO
I have several zines that span a range of emotional entry points. From a Body Hair Superhero daydream, to the day in the life of a dodgeball, I hope everyone will be able to find something that resonates.
Andrea Bell | Chicago, IL
Andrea is an illustrator and comic artist living in Chicago throughout the best and worse seasons. Her work reflects adventure, honesty, and strong relate-able characters combined with an intriguing palette. She has self-published “Fair Voyage” (2017) her female-lead adventure story, released with Yeti Press “Rose from the Dead” a Dude in Distress tale, along with a collection of mix cd zines and mini comics about a dog she does not own. Anna Jo Beck | Chicago, IL
My zines are detailed and informative, with ranging topics from personal finance, to city hall weddings, to Spanish grammar, to the possessions you accumulate when you have cancer. You can read my zines online at annajobeck.com.
Archie Bongiovanni* | Minneapolis, MN
Archie is a queer cartoonist and zine-maker living in Minneapolis. Archie’s work has been published online, in mini-comics, anthologies, and various websites, such as Everyday Feminism and monthly on Autostraddle. Their work ranges from personal to educational, writing about the issues facing (and within) the queer community, erotica zines, and all the weird sex they’ve had. The baseline of Archie’s work is about wearing our desires on our sleeves, to be obvious, voyeuristic, messy, and complicated-but also to be just damn fun.
Architrave Press | St. Louis, MO
Beautifully printed poems, sold individually.
Ben Sears* | Louisville, KY
Ben Sears was last seen in Louisville, no reward if found.
Benjamin Sawyer | St. Louis, MO
Illustrator, comic book artist
Boulevard | St. Louis, MO
Boulevard’s is a tri-annual literary magazine found in 1985. Our mission is to publish the finest in contemporary fiction and poetry as well as definitive essays on the arts and culture, and to publish a diversity of writers who exhibit an original sensibility. It is our conviction that creative and critical work should be presented in a variegated yet coherent ensemble—as a boulevard, which contains in one place the best a community has to offer.
Brick City Poetry Festival* | St. Louis, MO
The St. Louis Brick City Poetry Festival was founded by an intergenerational group of poets and poetry event organizers from around the St. Louis metro region. Led by Dr. Michael Castro, inaugural Poet Laureate of St. Louis, the Festival seeks to unite the city’s varying manifestations of poetry and to also, as Dr. Castro said, “promote the unity, empathy and cross-cultural communication so needed in our region.” Like the red brick from the Mississippi River basin that colors the city’s built landscape, the Brick City Poetry Festival seeks to be a the foundation that supports our rich poetic heritage and diverse literary culture. Now in its third year, the Festival is proud to host keynote speaker and native son Quincy Troupe, as well as a week of storytelling through film screenings, an oral histories project, regional poetry slam, open mics, writer’s workshop, and more.
Brick City Poetry Festival will host a poetry reading in the Training Room at 12pm.
Brittany Woods Middle School | St. Louis, MO
Brittany Woods Art students work hard creating middle school masterpieces all year. They are accepted into competitive art programs all over Saint Louis including LEAP at the Contemporary, Saint Louis Artworks and have had a booth at the Cherokee Print Bazaar for the past 5 years. Advanced students created art prints which include etching, lino-cuts and screen prints. They will also have stickers, cards and possible t-shirts for sale.
Caitlin Metz | St. Louis, MO
Lots of feelings and weird drawings, mostly in bookish forms, exploring anxiety, depression and multiplicity of identity, radical self care and empathy.
Caitlin Moriarity & Coyote Bynum | St. Louis, MO
Caitlin and Coyote create the indie comics Sky Faraday, a space pulp adventure with lady protagonists, and Small Things, an urban sci-fi tale. Our comics are aimed at ages 12 and up.
Central Print | St. Louis, MO
Non-profit letterpress public print studio
Charnerart | Cleveland, OH
As charnerart, I author a series of comics based on real people and experiences, like being in a band, having frenemies, working in a kitchen, being a camgirl, having horrible roommates, discovering sexuality, and running amok in this big little world.
Cheap Fun | St. Louis, MO
Liam and Katherine are local Saint Louis artists. Katherine is a middle school art educator in University City and Liam is artist/podcast extraordinaire graduating from UMSL with his MFA in May 2018. Cheap fun is their collaborative space where comics, prints and stop motion and illustrations meet. For the expo we plan to have hand-made prints, stickers, and mini-comics.
Christianne’s Comics | Centralia, MO
I self-publish comics and make prints. I also appear in comics anthologies for other publishers. I mostly create short stories, so no long reader commitments are required.
Dan Zettwoch | St. Louis, MO
Slice-of-Life Comics and Homemade Screenprints about nature, history, family, sports, and technology
december | St. Louis, MO
Through its semiannual literary journal, december nurtures writers and artists at every stage of their development. We champion the work of unheralded writers and artists; celebrate new concepts from seasoned voices; and advocate for our contributors in the literary, artistic, and general communities.
Demian DinéYazhi´* | Indigenous Lands of the Multnomah/Clackamas tribes (Portland, Oregon)
Demian Dinéyazhi’ is an indigenous Diné (Navajo) transdisciplinary artist living in the Indigenous Lands of the Multnomah/Clackamas tribes (Portland, Oregon). His work is rooted in Radical Indigenous Queer Feminist ideology, landscape representation, memory, HIV/AIDS-related art & activism, gender, identity, & sexuality, Indigenous Survivance, & Decolonization. He received his BFA in Intermedia Arts from Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2014. Demian is the founder & director of the artist / activist initiative, R.I.S.E.: Radical Indigenous Survivance & Empowerment, which is dedicated to the education, perseverance, & evolution of Indigenous art & culture. He is the recipient of the 2017 Brink Award; as well as grants from Evergreen State College (2014), PICA – Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (2014), Art Matters Foundation (2015).
Demian DinéYazhi´ will give an artist talk in the Training Room at 2pm.
Dorothy, a publishing project | St. Louis, MO
Recently named one of five small presses “slyly changing the industry for the better” (Flavorwire), Dorothy, a publishing project is dedicated to works of fiction or near fiction or about fiction, mostly by women.
Dumpster Pizza Press | St. Louis, MO
Alternative fine art comix and zines
Eddie Jenkins Hernandez | Kansas City, MO
I am an individual who has self-published a novel, a novella, and some zines.
Edo Rosenblith & Peter Pranschke | St. Louis, MO
We each have a background in visual art and have extensive experience exhibiting in gallery spaces. Our work includes zines, comics and art books as well as original prints and drawings.
Elis Press | St. Louis, MO
Elis Press is an independent publisher of innovative poetry and writing, currently based in Saint Louis. Through its subsidiary These Signals Press, Elis publishes SET: an online biennial journal, as well as chapbooks by emerging writers.
Evey In Orbit | Nashville, TN
My zines are part sketchbook, part journal, and part therapy practice. I mostly write personal essays, non linear narrative, and other prose about my heartbreak and discoveries. Sometimes, I mix in a how to zine, usually about birth or zine making itself. Sometimes, I get overtly political and spit and curse lyrically. My zine art could be described as alternative portraiture as I draw faces both cute and disturbing and I collage a visual akin to identity crisis.
Currently, I offer about 30 of my own titles at fests, slightly more online. None are serialized zines, but I am working on changing that with a forthcoming title called Free Paragraphs. I am also the editor of several collaborative zine projects, the most consistent being a quarterly feminist zine called RIPE WITH RAGE.
Fractal Comic | Chicago, IL
Fractal is a SciFi drama based in the near future.
Frotoon Comics | St. Louis, MO
Frotoon Comics is the brainchild of designer/illustrator Dmitri Jackson. Dmitri self-publishes minicomics that explore politics, music and cultural identity.
Gutwrench Press | New Orleans, LA
Gutwrench Press encourages inspired communication through zines abouthometowns, moving away, and living in the gulf south, and through the Keep Writing Project–a monthly interactive postcard subscription where recipients receive a letterpress printed postcard to keep with a question or prompt for response. We also make handbound books and journals.
Headmetal Comics | O’Fallon, IL
Headmetal Comics is where I, Chris Orndoff, call home. It’s where I publish all my stuff! glorious, glorious stuff! I have collaborated with creators from all over the globe, but I still think that St. Louis is home to the greatest minds on the planet. This year I have a new comics collaboration with one of those previously mentioned brilliant STL minds.
Hive Mind Comics | St. Louis, MO
Hive Mind Comics is the the collaborative effort of Brandon Daniels and Sam Boven. Brandon and Sam create mind bending comics, zines, and fine art prints. After meeting in graduate school, Brandon and Sam discovered a mutual interest in sequential art and small press culture. Their work interrogates the boundaries of the science fiction genre and the medium of comics.
Ink and Drink Comics | St. Louis, MO
Ink and Drink Comics publishes two genre themed short story anthologies per year as well as a mini-comic for Free Comic Book Day. To date, we’ve published 15 books and 6 mini-comics. The Ink and Drink Comics collective is the premier gathering place for new and upcoming indie talent in the St. Louis region and we love showcasing that depth of talent and fresh ideas in our offerings.
Katie Armentrout | Chicago, IL
I write and draw comics about my personal life, anxieties, and all the humor and humility that comes along with it. I also create body positive prints featuring fat pin up babes, burly men and re imagined chubby pop culture figures. My work is totally kitschy, sassy, and a good time!
King-Cat Comix / Spit and a Half Distro | Beloit, WI
I have self-published my zine King-Cat Comix since 1989, and run the Spit and a Half Comix Distro since 1992.
Lathe Zine | St. Louis, MO
Curated Tomfoolery surrounding the psychoses of architecture and design.
Lawrence Lindell Studios | Compton, CA
I will have my latest book “From Black Boy With Love” book dedicated to all the girls of color and about 5-6 other comic and illustration books.
Life With Girls | Saint Charles, MO
Life With Girls is an ongoing comic about the daily life stories of a stay at home dad, his daughters, and the people in their lives. In addition to Life With Girls, I also have in progress fairy tale/adventure stories through Red Herring Illustration.
Likewise Magazine | Kansas City, MO
Likewise Magazine started with the goal to contribute towards an inclusive arts community. Diminishing the boundaries of creative disciplines and reflecting the fluidity of creative overlap in contemporary art. Likewise Magazine functions as a platform for creators to exhibit their work but more importantly facilitates new projects. I like to joke that my job title should be “hype man” because really what I try to do is pump people up and get them excited to create and push them into a new territory. The experience differs from viewing work on white walls in a gallery where the work is neatly defined because when you view Likewise the design of the page is fused with the content and everything is presented as one big project with equal parts.
Issue One of Likewise Magazine centers around the theme of joining forces. The call for entries was a rallying cry for creative collaboration and collective action. This idea came to me during the whirlwind of the 2017 presidential election. I felt so empowered from current events such as the Women’s March. It just really made me realize what an impact we can have when we all bring it, when we all show up, and frankly when we’re all pissed off. I wanted to take that energy and bring people together to make something beautiful. As artists and creators, we put forward the ideas that will define the culture we live in. Specifically in this issue, I wanted to explore what collaboration could be and redefine it as this multi-layered way of making. So many people had a hand in creating this magazine and it could not have become this without each and every one of them. My intent is that this issue will help empower us to come together and keep creating collectively. We can’t do it all alone — and we definitely wouldn’t want to.
Liz Prince* | Portland, ME
Liz Prince is a Portland, ME cartoonist known for her charming diary comics that share her experience in and out of relationships and the awkwardness of her adolescence, all with humor and honesty. Her autobio comic collections include Alone Forever (Top Shelf, 2014), Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir (Zest Books, 2014) named one of Kirkus Review’s best books of 2014, and Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed? (Top Shelf, 2005) which received the Ignatz for Outstanding Debut in 2005. Liz has written and drawn comics for all of your favorite Cartoon Network shows, and is the creator and writer of the new BOOM!Box series about paranormal punk rock, Coady and the Creepies.
A conversation with Liz Prince will take place in the Training Room at 3pm.
lowercase | Iowa City, IA
lowercase is an Iowa City-based artist’s book and zine distribution and curatorial project, featuring publications that give particular attention to the relationship of content/format/materials and that represent new or alternate modes of reading and sharing information.
(note: this is a new offshoot of the Drift Plain Collective, which exhibited at the STLSPExpo in 2015 & 2016 and is no longer traveling to fairs).
Marie Enger | St. Louis, MO
I work on mostly horror comics – as well as doing work on REGRESSION, Dept. H, Table Titans (Fallen Veil), comic work with the band PUP, and some upcoming (unannounced) projects through BOOM!
Marie Enger will lead a digital drawing demonstration in the Creative Experience at 11am.
Mega Giganto | St. Louis, MO
Mega Giganto is a comics factory comprised of a husband and wife team. They punch out a variety of monstrously weird comics, illustrations, and other oddities.
Mike Mccubbins / Matt Bryan | St. Louis, MO
Matt and Mike make comics, posters, postcards and more with a dose of sci-fi, a touch of humor, and bit of the artsy and experimental.
Monster House Press | Bloomington, IN
Monster House Press (est. 2010) is a nonprofit publisher & circuit of literature, art, & thought in the Midwest. We exist in print & online, as well as in the corporeal world via the organization of readings, events, & tours which intend to connect via an intentional being-with through the container of literature & art. We publish work that fuses, deconstructs, grafts, (re)imagines, connects, & disentangles the myths, customs, language, narratives, ideologies, apparatuses, & presuppositions of the contemporary milieu & moment. Emergent voices & writers make home & collaborate alongside established ones in books that illuminate the quotidian to raise it up into an eternal. We publish constantly evolving, challenging, accessible, multi-faceted & pertinent books + texts. We wish to graft a new world with what is most monstrous & necessary to continue. We live in Bloomington, Indiana.
Mountain of Knives | St. Louis, MO
The Mountain of Knives is an American independent animation studio specializing in grindhouse style micro animation and comics. The St. Louis, Missouri based studio mixes chanbara, chopsocky, splatter, and wuxia themes into ultraviolent collages of death. Chanbaragogo unapologetically syncs up genres, cultures, and mythology into something new, yet familiar, drenched in copious amounts of blood.
Animator Chris Sagovac founded the Mountain of Knives in the summer of 2016 along with a small group of outlaw cel-swords to create original content right here in the United States. Chanbaragogo links mini comics to animated content via QR code. This enables you to watch the animated action sequences using your mobile device after reading the stories in print. Or you can just kick around the site watching the carnage if binge watching pure action is your thing.
Mystery Spot Books | Minneapolis, MN
Mystery Spot Books produces small-run artist books, zines, and other publications that trace the contours and quirks of place-based experience in the human-altered landscape. Named for the tourist trap wonder attractions often encountered on road trips around the United States, Mystery Spot is a project of Minneapolis-based artist Chad Rutter and Austin-based writer Emily Roehl.
Natural Bridge | St. Louis, MO
Natural Bridge, a journal of contemporary literature, began publishing fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and works in translation by award winning writers just prior to the new millennium, and its national and international subscriptions, and thus its reach, have grown yearly. Each issue contains approximately four new stories, twenty-five new poems, and two essays, all of which are selected from unsolicited submissions sent from writers throughout the world. Natural Bridge accepts work year round, the editors and assistant editors sifting through approximately 1200 submissions each year. New, emerging, and mid-career writers whose work has been published in Natural Bridge have been anthologized and have gone on to win The Flannery O’Connor, the Drue Heinz, the John Ciardi prizes, and more.
Natural Bridge, connected the University of Missouri-St. Louis, is published twice yearly, April and November, and uses a sophisticated Editor/Guest Editor system. The Editor is novelist and short story writer, Mary Troy, but novelist John Dalton and poets Steven Schreiner, Shane Seely, and Drucilla Wall periodically serve as Guest Editors.
Advanced MFA students, many already publishing their own work, serve as assistant editors/ first readers of all work submitted. Natural Bridge is a non-profit literary journal supported by the English Department at UM-St. Louis, the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission, and the Missouri Arts Council.
neither/nor Zine Distro | Kansas City, MO
Local, personal, DIY, self-care, radical and feminist zines are the focus of this distro. Other things neither/nor has to offer are titles from Pioneers Press, Silver Sprocket, and Eberhardt Press, used zines, Slingshot Newspapers and Organizers, coloring books, buttons, and lots of cool free stuff.
neither/nor is owned and operated by KC native Jess Hogan. Jess loves making, reading, trading, and collecting zines. It’s that love that lead her to connect with other local zinesters and work towards putting on the KC Zine Con for the past 2 years! In November 2015, after the success and connections made at Zine Con #1, her long time dream of running a zine distro came true! She hopes the distro will be a source for new and old zine makers/enthusiasts to sell their zines and support one another as well as serve as a zine destination in KC year round.
Olivia Gibb | Kansas City, MO
I am a multidisciplinary artist specializing in printmaking, ceramics, zines, buttons, drawings and performance.
PIECRUST Magazine/ Saturday Press | Reno, NV
PIECRUST was a St. Louis-based contemporary art magazine founded in 2011 that is interested in works on paper, including drawings, photos, prints, sculptures, books, writings and interviews. Our goal is to foster a new perspective on art by providing a foundation for artists to build upon visually, mentally, and physically in their practice. A themed, letterpressed issue of PIECRUST is released twice annually.
Radically Tender* | St. Louis, MO
the radical tenderness project is a soft space for folx at the intersections to breathe in the flowers
Ray Nadine | St. Louis, MO
Ray Nadine is a local comic creator, their most notable comic Dollhouse, a queer slice-of-life drama set in St. Louis about a girl, a band, and their terrible decisions. They’ve also made a handful of zines and comics of the queer and NSFW variety.
Red Shorts Bindery | Kansas City, MO
I’m a self publisher making comics and artists books. I also am a lithographer and periodically print fine art editions for emerging artists. I also use the teardown from these projects to bind high quality blank books.
Riso Hell | St. Louis, MO
We are a small scale St. Louis based risograph printer and publisher run by Bridget Carey and Brandon Bandy. Printing our own work as well as collaborating with others, we offer a variety of prints and zines.
River Styx Literary Magazine | St. Louis, MO
Since 1975, River Styx has published an international, award-winning journal of poetry, fiction, essays, interviews, and art. The magazine has consistently been one of the first to publish some of the most important writers of our time, from U.S. Poet Laureates (Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn, Rita Dove, Robert Hass, and Ted Kooser), to Pulitzer Prize-Winners (Yusef Komunyakaa, Stephen Dunn, and Ted Kooser), to National Book Award Winners (Marilyn Hacker, Howard Nemerov, Lisel Mueller, Lucille Clifton, and Robert Hass), to Nobel Laureates (Derek Walcott and Czeslaw Milosz). The magazine publishes biannually, hosts a monthly reading series, and sponsors annual contests for poetry and microfiction.
Rob Armbrister | St. Louis MO
Illustrator and designer creating weird monsters and goofy creatures in the form of paper toys, prints and zines.
Same Coin Press | Fairfield, IL/Salt Lake City
We make zines and photobooks that can be distributed affordably. By keeping prices low (and sometimes free) we can distribute art to (and by) people at multiple income levels.
Savannah Bustillo | Albuquerque, NM
I will be showcasing small handmade books, zines, and hand printed posters that all revolve around current politics in the US, especially in relation to immigrants, immigrant labor, Latinx identity, and queerness. There is a mix of work done solely by myself and in collaboration with other students. My goal is to add to current dialogues of where brown labor and sexuality connect, especially through humor.
Sean Dempsey | Chicago, IL
My body of work includes a range of hand made mini-comics and self published works. “Illustra-Sean” is an on going daily journal comic the i started in 2013 and publish annually. I’ve been working on a fantasy adventure series titled “Traitor” about a ghost child helping a giant find his way home. Each chapter is hand bound with a screen printed cover on raw canvas. Most of my other projects are hand made mini comics. I like to use alternative and experimental binding techniques and materials that create a unique reading experience.
Somnadrome Press | St. Louis, MO
Somnadrome Press was founded in the summer of 2012 as a way to support a Latino literary community in the mid-West through the publication of the annual literary magazine Corazón Land Review, which seeks to publish authors pushing cultural boundaries of identity norms through writing.
Southeast Missouri State University Press | Cape Girardeau, MO
Our press is very small, publishing 3-5 books a year, and two literary journals, Big Muddy and The Cape Rock. I just recently took over the press in January when its founder retired, and am in the process of taking it in some new directions, slowly but surely. I’m working to publish exciting titles in fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction, in both the journals and our books.
St. Louis Public Library Zine Collection | St. Louis, MO
Stache | St. Louis, MO
Stache is dedicated to helping others #makecomics and increasing the artistic diversity of US comics. For the next STL SPX we will be showcasing our upcoming graphic novel Primas. The work was created by Professor Alberto Pessoa, PhD from the Federal University of Paraíba. It is based on research conducted by the University on the lives of sex workers in a poor region of Brazil.
Sundress Publications | Knoxville, TN / St. Louis, MO
Sundress Publications is a (mostly) woman-run, woman-friendly non-profit publication group founded in 2000 that hosts a variety of online journals and publishes chapbooks and full-length collections in both print and digital formats. We also publish the annual Best of the Net Anthology, celebrating the best work published online, and the Gone Dark Archives, preserving online journals that have reached the end of their run.
Ted May / Sacha Mardou | St. Louis, MO
Comic books: Sky in Stereo, Men’s Feelings, Injury
The Ladydrawers Comics Collective & Cow House Press | Chicago, IL
Cow House Press focuses on publishing emerging artists of color, women, and LGBTQIAx creators in the form of zines, comics and handmade books. Thinking about digital distribution, educational resources and library archives; Cow House Press works to reach people without the economic or physical ability to access zine and literary festivals as well as representing artists in these spaces. The press works alongside the Ladydrawers Comic Collective who are a group that researches, performs, and publishes comics and texts about how economics, race, sexuality, and gender impact the comics industry, other media, and our culture at large. Our data comes from original research conducted in the public realm by students, interns, volunteers, and supporters around the globe.
The Moon Zine* | St. Louis, MO
We are a monthly, STL-based, free, eco-conscious, compilation zine. Each issue has a different theme and contributors from all over send us their work. We compile many different voices into one zine. We distribute the zine throughout STL and also online. We enjoy connecting with our community through collaging events, expos, art fairs, and concerts. The editor team is comprised of five individuals who currently live in south St. Louis City.
The Moon Zine will run a hands-on zine making workshop in the Training Room at 4pm.
Uncommonplace Book | St. Louis, MO
We publish a literary journal and some other independent books.
Unheard Comics | St. Louis, MO
Autobiographical comics about a man’s struggle with mental health, thoughts on life, and record reviews.
Westminster Press | St. Louis, MO
Westminster Press is an Art Gallery, Consignment Shop, and Printmaking Studio dedicated to promoting work by artists of marginalized identities, inclusive of women, LGBT folks, people of color, and our allies.
WomenArts Quarterly Journal | St. Louis, MO
WomenArts Quarterly Journal (WAQ), an initiative of Women in the Arts, aspires to nurture, provide support, and challenge women-identified artists of all cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, and abilities in their role in the arts and seeks to heighten the awareness and understanding of the achievements of women creators, by providing audiences with historical and contemporary examples of the work of women writers, composers, and artists.
Work Press & Publication | St. Louis, MO / Champaign, IL
Work Press & Publication is an artist book publisher and Risograph printer based in St Louis, MO and Champaign, IL. The idea of work and work ethic is what drives our company. Our investments are time and energy, and our product is not just a singular object, but a practical example of the doctrine that hard work gives way to good ideas and that those good ideas, in turn, manifest into hard work.
WORK/PLAY | St. Louis, MO
WORK/PLAY is a design/printmaking duo based in St. Louis, MO. We design, create, and bind all of our zines. Most include either silkscreen and/or letterpress typography or imagery. Our subject matter references inequalities in America, issues on race, and togetherness. In addition to zines, we also silkscreen posters, make notebooks, and various other tangible items.
Worser Beings | Atlanta, GA
Worser Beings is a small press that produces, zines and screen prints of pretty demented stuff. But what’s considered demented is very relative.
Yeyo Arts Collective* | St. Louis, MO
Yeyo Arts Collective is dedicated to women’s art and topics surrounding women’s issues; including family, youth, and community.
YourWordsSTL* | St. Louis, MO
YourWords STL uses one-on-one tutoring, creative writing workshops, and collaborative writing projects to amplify the voices of St. Louis youth. We are committed to bridging racial, cultural, and economic divides, by honing the ability of people to tell their stories, while providing opportunities for the community to listen.
YourWords STL will lead a poetry workshop for kids in the Training Room at 11am.
Cancellations | updated October 12, 2017
Anxious Ink | Minneapolis, MN
Alexis is a Minneapolis based cartoonist creating queer romance and mental health comics. She is the proud mommy of one cat and an avid Fall Out Boy fan!
Curtis Tinsley | St. Louis, MO
Illustrator, Comic Artist, Time Travelling Android
Elizabeth Sharp | Fayetteville, AR
I am a freelance illustrator and designer out of Fayetteville, AR. My work combines practical, applicable design with a fantastical and misguided pursuit of beauty. I primarily create show posters for live music and show / sell my work locally and regionally.
My first experience with DIY publishing began with an artist coalition I helped initiate called Goop Troupe. We hosted group shows and created zines featuring various artists. Last spring I created a series of my own mini zines, with interconnected imagery and brief writing. I have been selling and distributing these over the past year. First, at the Little Craft Show, an indie craft show in Northwest Arkansas. Then last fall, at Papercuts, a DIY publishing show in Little Rock. I am also features in zines designed as companions to Backspace, Fayetteville’s DIY space, and Valley of the Vapors, a music festival in Hot Springs, AR. Most recently I collaborated on Nasty Women Northwest Arkansas zine packs. This project was part of the national Nasty Women art shows based out of New York City. My interest in combining art and design with publishing is strongly influenced by my work at Nightbird Books, Fayetteville’s independent bookstore owned and operated by my family. I am currently working on two new zines, entitled “Resistance is Futile” and “You’re Only As Poor As You Are”, that I will have available at the Small Press Expo.
*Invited guest