Amber Causner in front of the Zine of Production table at Cornish Bank, Taken by Angelina Ortega.
By Angelina Ortega
“You have to kind of start something for yourself sometimes.”
Amber, a passionate zine creator from New Zealand, was sitting within Cornish Bank’s Christmas bazaar, selling zines and posters of all sizes and colours. Black and white A6 prints lined the table across from the zines about the patriarchy, and the posters reading: HOPE DIES LAST. At the edge of the paper-filled table were magnets and letter cut-outs, spelling “Zines of Production”.
“It’s a sort of small publishing business; I’m trying to set up with writing across the world.”
I ask her about how she began creating zines within this style.
“So I’ve been living in New Zealand for the last 8 years and there I was involved with a sort of radical press that all of the sort of materials for bookmaking as well as making zines. We would just go into the print room and print, print, print, and yeah. Just had so much fun. I think it’s something about seeing your writing come in to something that can be shared that’s really powerful.”
She explains that it’s her first time here in Falmouth selling her zines.
“It’s good; it’s been meeting lots of people and talking about it. Like, lots of really nice interactions. It’s been quite quiet today, but the weather’s been miserable and the high street’s really quiet.”
Amber goes on to explain how this is something she knew she wanted to do, however it’s not as easy as joining a collective and that sometimes, you have to do things for yourself if you want it.
“In New Zealand, a lot of the stuff we were printing was very political – it was very New Zealand-specific. Because I’m very new to Cornwall, I don’t know what the atmosphere is and I would love to be sharing writing by people here rather than bringing stuff from New Zealand and publishing it. It’s about building those relationships because these are people I know really well, so working with them is a bit easier.”
“I think the self-published is really important to me because I know a lot of writers who wait for a publisher to accept your work. Often when that does happen is there’ll be a very strict editing process that will kind of strip maybe some aspects of your work that make it yours, whereas the self-publishing process, you actually have so much autonomy and you can print whatever you want. It’s about putting it in the world – it’s not going to make a huge profit, but if you have ideas that you want to get out there , then self-publishing is just a great way of doing that.”
We talk about how to go about starting a zine business of your own. “Print, print, print,” she says. “Buying and maintaining a printer is so hard but it’s worth it.”
I end the interview asking how she wants customers to leave feeling.
“Firstly, that we all have things to say, that we all have really important knowledge to pass on to each other, and it’s not just books in Waterstones that contain all that wisdom – it’s actually in all of us. I think for the customer to realise it’s possible to also share the knowledge and for them to listen to their fellow people rather than some publisher that’s put someone on a pedestal and says, this is the person that knows all the answers on how to do this thing when actually, it’s probably more likely you’re going to find it’s been published by someone in the backroom of an office.”
If you are interested in Amber Causner’s zines and what she creates, or would like to collaborate with her, check her Instagram: @zinesofproduction