Here is another piece of Echo Zines herstory, probably the final post in this 20th zine anniversary series (well, we’ll see, the year isn’t over yet). Because I’ve been making zines for 20 years now, I wanted to take a look at what I’ve made and published throughout this time and share some origin stories of my zine project with you. Previously I blogged about Punk Feminist Mini Zine, the first zine I ever made, and about the zine series Flapper Gathering. Now I’d like to talk about another – still ongoing – zine series called Same Heartbeats…
I started writing Same Heartbeats just after releasing Not Lady-like, a kind of travelzine about going to Ladyfest Berlin 2005. I was proud of that zine and enjoyed making it a lot, and wanted to continue on that path, moving from the A6 pocket paper size with somewhat strict structures like Flapper Gathering to a bigger size with more possibilities, flexibility, and freedom. Same Heartbeats was intended to be part perzine, part feminist activist zine, part travel zine, part DIY craft zine, and part whatever I felt like doing. It evolved as much as I did.
The name came from a mixtape given to me by my friend and riot grrrl organiser/zinester Manuela. She had written “different world, same heartbeats” on the cassette tape which I thought sounded very beautiful.
I’ve made 18 issues of Same Heartbeats so far, with the first issue that was published in 2007 (that I started to write in 2006). Inside these zines you can find travel stories of going to zine fests and ladyfests in Europe, instructions for craft projects, comics featuring my band Lavender Witch and my old band Vagina Dentata, comics about my stuffed bunny Chainsaw Bunny, articles about feminist activism, thoughts on gender, ageing, and tiredness, interviews with creative friends, a lot of zine love, and much more.
UPDATE: Some things I forgot, that I’d like to mention: two of the 18 issues are splitzines (with Artificial Womb and Forever Incomplete), the 10th issue includes a special mini-zine all about Chainsaw Bunny, and I’m very particular about the colour of the yarn I use to bind these zines. Most of them are selected by the colour I associate with the number of the issue (because I have synesthesia). 🙂 Also, as you can see, I changed the size of the newest issue to A6!
Here you can see the covers of all 18 issues of Same Heartbeats:
At the moment all 18 issues are still available to buy (take a look at my zine catalogue). Some are available in bundles in my webshop too. I plan to make the 19th issue of Same Heartbeats some time next year…
And now, go make some zines of your own!
Echo Zines 
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