Research Town

Inaugural zine club night Tuesday 19 May 2026

In doing my research interviews and fieldwork in January and February this year I have had the delight to meet with folks from Highland Zine Bothy and Isle of Riso in Inverness. Last night was the inaugural zine club meeting of the Inversneckie Zine Scene co-hosted by Isle of Riso and Highland Zine Bothy, and sponsored by Paperback, who provided a lovely stack of recycled paper. This morning as I sit back at my desk in the office, in Stirling, I am revelling in my swag from the evening (see below!), but also the fact that I drove up to Inverness and back from Perth for the evening – something that I would not have previously considered doing.

I don’t think that it is primarily due to the distance Inverness is from Perth that I haven’t travelled up so much. Though at roughly two and a half hours drive between the two cities – it’s one hour and twenty minutes further away from Perth than Glasgow (not including traffic delays getting into the centre!) and similarly one a quarter hour’s drive further away from Perth than Edinburgh (also not including delay time added for traffic into the centre!) – which is a bit further than the usual central belt evening event traveling time. By Canadian standards, I am reliably told, a two and a half hour drive is still regarded as a short trip! Rather, I think that the main reason behind not going to events more often was that the creative things happening in Inverness were not previously on my radar. The central belt cities do tend to get the focus of attention as there are more things happening at closer proximity – another reason why highlighting the types of art publishing happening in the highlands and rural areas of Scotland is important.

My first visit to the WASPS Creative Academy in Inverness, where Isle of Riso is based and where the first zine club was held, was to attend a Hopeful Futures event held there as part of the weekend of activities hosted by Circus Artspace in September 2024. Since then, regardless of the geographical distance between us, I have found in the people involved in organizing the Inversneckie Zine Scene a shared passion for making and sharing zines and zine-making tools and techniques with others, and for being creative in a hands on way with paper and books, drawing, collage and printing.

It all started with a pilot session organized and hosted by the Highland Zine Bothy on the first day February this year. I went along that day and enjoyed the generative discussions that we had about what an Inverness zine club could look like, who it would be for, and how it would be organized. The who would it be for part was interesting to think about. As someone who lives in Perth, could I still be a part of this club? – we thought so! People who come to Inverness also travel some long distances depending on where they are based further north or the west and the east. However my connections with the Inversneckie Zine Scene develop in the future I am glad to have been welcomed with open arms in whatever capacity seems to fit well at the time.

I have found in the people involved in organizing the Inversneckie Zine Scene a shared passion for making and sharing zines and zine-making tools and techniques with others, and for being creative in a hands on way with paper and books, drawing, collage and printing.

Though hosted by Isle of Riso, it’s the online roundtable meeting that really sets the agenda for the zine club event. Whoever wants to attend the roundtable is then involved in helping to develop and organize the activities and the focus theme for the zine-making at the event, which gives a revolving sense of ownership to proceedings. For this first zine club event we developed a fun collaborative zine making activity as a warm up for people who maybe hadn’t met each other before or who were new to making zines.

Your collaborative zine begins by writing your name on the first page, and then the subsequent three spreads are filled in, with a five minute time cap. You start with your own first spread and after five minutes pass it on to the person to your left who fills out the second spread and so on. At the end you have a zine that was collectively made. We discussed the themes that this could revolve around or the prompts to give people and decided on the idea of taking the Isle of Riso mascot wolf ¹ character on a journey through a memorable place on the first spread, to a place where the weather changed drastically for the second spread and on the third spread, to a comforting space. Isle of Riso made shiny Inversneckie Zine Scene stickers and Highland Zine Bothy brought a badge maker so we could each make a badge if we wanted one to add to the sense of being part of the club.

Isle of Riso takes on the logistics of planning and rallies the troops, which also included the lovely Salt and Vinegar Press for this first event, which I think works really well. I look forward to seeing how plans for the next Inversneckie Zine Scene zine club in June work out!

1. I had thought this character was a dog, or a fox, but I have been reliably informed it is in fact a wolf! ↩︎