Support Bay Area Queer Zine Fest 2024!

My name is Maira and I'm an organizer with Bay Area Queer Zine Fest, an LGBTQ+-centered zine and independent publishing event in the Bay Area. We started in 2017 to celebrate our region's rich queer history, and this will be our 7th year. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we've pivoted to a hybrid model to allow for greater accessibility - we have a week-long virtual fest in addition to a masked in-person fest. Venue costs in the area have skyrocketed in the last few years, and we now find ourselves without somewhere to gather for our annual event, taking place in September 2024.

Since its inception in 2017, Bay Area Queer Zine Fest has striven to positively maintain, support, and contribute to the queer + creative communities it proactively represents. BAQZF aims to provide and uphold a safe, welcoming, and accessible space for all vendors, patrons, and passersby by organizing events centered around inclusivity and constructive interactions with the external and internal communities of the Bay Area and beyond.

Any funds raised will go towards a venue + event insurance, printing and supply costs, snacks and beverages for event tablers and volunteers, providing masks for attendees and tablers, website fees for hosting our free virtual fest, workshop supplies, and more. At the end of the fundraiser, we will be donating 10% of proceeds to the Disability Visibility Project.

The fest is completely volunteer-run, meaning no one on the team gets paid for the many, many hours we put into making the fest happen year after year. Planning the event takes anywhere from 6-8 months annually, not counting the post-fest followup. We are fiscally sponsored by local non-profit Rock Paper Scissors Collective, but have not been able to get any grants yet.

Our theme for our seventh year is "luck," and we're hoping that we can get some and the fest will happen as planned!