

zine writing club presents
The Chapbook Factory
Sundays: February 9 - March 16, 2025
ONLINE, 11am - 1pm EST
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with Lucy K Shaw
Part Writing Workshop / Part Cultural History Club
/ Part Surviving Winter Support Group ;)

Six x two hour online meetings
Weekly curated reading to your inbox
Weekly writing goals
New friends, fun
$100 - $200 usd, sliding scale
For people who have already written a lot / for people who haven’t written anything / for people who are in between projects / for people who want to start something new / for people who just feel like writing for fun / for people who want to spend the winter writing on Sundays, making friends and art, reading and writing and talking together. Everyone is welcome.

Inspired by work by Ana Carrete, Joanne Kyger, Sam Riviere, 16th Century Traveling Salesmen, LeRoi Jones, Rachelle Toarmino, Riot Grrrl, Jonathan Aprea, 19th century plagiarists and la Bibliothèque bleue, among many others.
Okay hi, welcome to the latest edition of Zine Writing Club. This winter we’re exploring the wondrous world of CHAPBOOKS, learning about their long history, and reading examples from their experimental revival in the second half of the twentieth century all the way through to today. With 500 years of DIY freaks as our inspiration, we’ll work together to write, edit and produce our own chapbooks, drawing on materials we’ve already written and disregarded or left unfinished, as well as new writing generated by achievable weekly assignments. Each participant will finish the course with a new chapbook manuscript and the skills to turn it into a physical object, ripe for distribution.
The Chapbook Factory is open to writers at any level of experience, working in any genre.
Timezone compatible for
Europe, Africa and the Americas:
5pm-7pm CET
4pm -6pm UK
11am - 1pm EST
10am - 12pm CT
8am - 10am PST


WEEK ONE
Introductions / A Brief History of Broadsides / Chapbook Show and Tell
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In this first session, we’re going to quickly get to know each other and establish a fun, supportive group dynamic. And then we’re going to delve into the surprisingly inspiring history of chapbook and broadside publishing. Did you know that people have been throwing scrappy little books together since basically the week after the printing press was invented? And that back in those dark days of the early modern period, when hardly anyone outside of the upper classes could actually read, rural chapbook fans would find the one literate person in the village and share information from the latest editions orally?
We’re also going to invite everyone to delve into their chapbook collections, (if you have one, you’re not required to have one), to find their favourites and curiosities for a Chapbook Show and Tell, so we can take inspiration and get ideas for our own projects, on everything from contents to format to cover design.
WEEK TWO
Five Centuries of Chapbooks / And a Plan for your Project
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On our second Sunday together, we’ll dive deeper into the types of literature published in chapbooks over the past ~500 years, exploring how our experimental ancestors around the world have used the form, and questioning, of course, what we can do with it today!
We’ll discuss our plans for the chapbooks we’re about to make, and what we want to write about right now.
WEEK THREE
Chapbook Revival / The Mimeo Revolution / And how is your writing going?
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Don’t worry, we’re not going to spend our entire time together thinking about baroque bitches. We’re moving forward chronologically, and now we’re ready to ruminate on the chapbook revival of the mid-twentieth century and the Mimeo Revolution. We’ll marvel at how a generation of poets and writers, without access to the internet or inkjet printers, managed to circumvent the institutional gatekeepers of traditional publishing to change the direction of American literature forever after.
We’ll also check in on each other’s writing weeks, talk about how our miniature manuscripts are progressing, and offer supportive feedback to one another.
WEEK FOUR
Feminist and Punk Fanzines of the late 20th century / Final Drafts
The Chapbook Factory is a special edition of the Zine Writing Club, so it makes sense that we should zoom in on zines, right? This week we’re looking at a less explicitly literary form of short booklet, and reading some incredibly creative feminist and punk zines from the 1970s-1990s. With the introduction of the photocopier to modern life, the means of production was more accessible than ever before, and naturally zines became a popular method for sharing important information between fans, friends and allies. Is it just me or do human beings have a biological urge to write and publish tiny books?!
Once we’ve been adequately inspired by our DIY forebears, we’ll discuss our own writing progress. By now we should be coming upon a full first draft of our chapbook manuscripts. :)
WEEK FIVE
Early-ish Internet / Alt Lit Ebooks / And Finding your Format
We’re going to look back into the recent yet somehow distant past of the earlier twenty-first century to read some visually stimulating, chap-length ebooks on some relatively ancient websites. No longer bound by paper and ink, what were the possibilities for literature in the digital age? And why does it feel like nobody’s really interested in that anymore? We’ll discuss how communities can form and develop around literature (how meta) and how each generation of avant-garde poets/pioneers finds its particular style.
This week we’ll also focus on formatting our chapbooks, as we prepare for production. We’ll discuss different techniques for presenting our finished products, and I’ll provide templates, emotional support and other helpful resources to make sure you can make it happen.
WEEK SIX
Contemporary Chapbooks / The Return of Physical Objects and Paper / Party Time
So what is happening now? In the year 2025, what are contemporary publishers and authors doing with our beloved chapbook form? What are we doing with it?! In our final meeting, we’ll talk about the style and contents of the chapbooks being produced by independent presses and independent individuals today.
And of course we’ll share our finished chapbooks with the group! Congratulations in advance, you did it. We’ll celebrate, discuss modes of distribution and finding an audience, and make plans to exchange copies of our final products.

Notes
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Every week we'll read a couple of chapbooks from different time periods. All of the reading will be available online.
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At the end of each session, you will be given an achievable writing goal aimed towards completing a chapbook manuscript.
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We will not formally workshop our writing as a group, but we will have a conversation about our progress each week.
Everyone will be invited to share excerpts from their chapbooks in a Google Drive before each meeting, and to talk about their experience, if they want to. Sharing work with other members of the group (in or outside of meetings) is encouraged, but not necessary. I want everyone to feel like they can keep their writing to themselves until they feel ready to share it.
​If you can't make it to a meeting, no problem. I'll upload the recording to the Drive and you can catch up in your own time!
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The deadline to sign up is February 3rd :)
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The Chapbook Factory is led by me, Lucy K Shaw. Hi. I wrote several books including Woman With Hat, Troisième Vague and The Motion. I started Shabby Doll House in 2012. I have edited and published work by hundreds of writers from all over world, first online, and more recently in books too. For the past year, I've been hosting Zine Writing Club, which is a fun, non-fiction writing community, and The Chapbook Factory is kind of a special edition. You can read a little more about me & Shabby Doll House here, or listen to me talk about it here.