As a lead-up to Canzine, Canzine West and the Canzine Symposium, we’re going to post some tiny wee profiles of some of the wonderful folks we have presenting, performing and tabling. This week we’ll be profiling some of our presenters at the Canzine Symposium – and they are an inspiring lot indeed! Be sure to read up and come check out our Symposium on Saturday October 19th from 11am – 3pm. Buy passes here.
MEET ERIN OH
Workshop: Beyond Zine Fairs: BUILDING COMMUNITIES
(with Chris Fritton)
Erin Oh (aka Erin Oldynski) flat-out rules. A native Pittsburg-ian (that’s a word, right?) via New York, she first got into self-publishing when she first attended Canzine in 2005. Eight years later, she’s co-founded the Pittsburgh Zine Fair, and organized a 2-day feminist zine symposium in Toronto called She Said Boom (in respond to crappy, university-endorsed behavior exhibited by “Men’s Right’s” groups at the University of Toronto) where Oh was also doing grad school for Sociology and Equity Studies in Education. The symposium featured GB Jones and Caroline Azar from the pioneering punk band Fifth Column, who did an amazing keynote about coming of age in Toronto, making zines, being broke, making music, and causing trouble. It was the shit, and so is Erin.
Erin is now back in Pittsburgh working with the mayor on a campaign to raise the high school graduation rate in the city, but we are so happy to bring her full circle back to Toronto as a presenter at our Symposium. Along with Chris Fritton of the Western New York Book Arts Center, Erin will be sharing her considerable knowledge at a workshop called “Beyond Zine Fairs: Building Communities” where she’ll discuss how to sustain independent cultural communities all the damn year long.
Sound good? Buy a Symposium ticket to come hear Erin and Chris speak, along with all our other amazing presenters!