My Zine

Write your own magazine based on your interests.

Level: Jr/Sr High School
Originated by: Treetop Publishing

This is a great project for groups or individuals. Pick a magazine topic based on your interests or use a magazine that you like to read as your inspiration.  It can be a multi-interest magazine with ideas for your home, health, food, community, etc., or it can be a more specific magazine that targets readers interested in sports, fashion, theatre, wildlife, or a specific hobby (crafting, cooking, etc.).  Think about what you would like to talk about in your zine, and make an outline for the different sections you’ll have.  For instance, if you are writing about your favorite sport, think about what kinds of sports issues, equipment, people, or aspects of the game she’d like to talk about.  What kind of advertising will you have?

Make a list of subtopics and beside each one write down what type of content it should be.  Possible content types include articles, interviews, creative writing (poetry and short fiction), drawings and other art, photos, charts, comic strips, or anything else you can imagine.

Look through old magazines or newspapers for images that will enhance your zine.  Use the images in combination with your own text and illustrations to create ads for products that support your zine topic.  Ads can be used to fill in “white space” – so if you need to fill a page, make a full page ad, if you need to fill in a quarter of a page, make a smaller ad.

Arrange all of your material and page it out as it will appear in your zine.  Before you paste or write your material into your Bare Book, make sure you leave a page or two (or whatever number of pages necessary) to include a table of contents (or leaders) in the beginning of the book.

Wait to design the cover of your book last – you may end up changing ideas as you work on the content of the zine.  Include catch titles for stories that you’ve included in your content to spark interest in what’s inside your zine!