Lots of news from Tees Zine Fest. We have another event for 2025, this time in Redcar to tie in nicely with the work we’ve been doing with local LGBTQ+ group Skittles and Halloween (of course). Our FrankenZine Mini Zine Fest happens on the Sat 25th October at Redcar Literary Institute from 1-6pm

There’ll be some of regular Zine makers and some new faces, including members of the Skittles Youth Group we worked with before the Summer as well as the Zine Library, Community Table and Workshops. We’ll also be doing some seasonal drinks and treats!

The Zine project with Skittles was funded by Tees Valley Museums and we worked in collaboration with Kirkleatham Museum. I worked weekly with friend and regular collaborator Wade Radford the fantastic zine and filmmaker and poet. It culminated in a show of the young people’s Zines and the film Wade made with them at the ground floor gallery space at the museum, and also included some histories of people from the LGBTQIA+ community from Teesside.

I’ve also been working with Wade supporting his film work, there’ll be more on that as it’s released

Funding News

We’re happy to say our Tees Zine Fest CIC has now been granted further funding, this time from Woodsmith Foundation. This enables us to further work with the young people in Redcar on the run up to the Zine Fest.

On top of this, Rumana of Bok Bok Books and I applied for and were finally successful in an bid from the Arts Council (after a couple of goes) for our ‘What’s in my Suitcase’ Project. We’ll be back with the Desi Blitz truck Painted Bus at events and schools across Teesside starting late September including Festival of Thrift and Middlesbrough Arts Week.

Flavoursome Workshops

I’ve been back to doing tea workshops recently, working with Hartlepool Museums. Alongside Rumana and Indi we had the unusual experience of doing workshops in and around a historic ship at the Hartlepool Royal Navy museum and I got to do tea blending in the captain’s cabin of the HMS Trincomalee. This was a bit of a full circle moment for me, as a 16 yr old my then Hartlepool resident boyfriend worked on the ship on a YTS scheme!

The work has also taken me to the Salaam Centre in Hartlepool, a great community centre in the heart of one of the more diverse parts of the town, and I got to work with people who had come to our area from across the world as we talked tea traditions and memories and blended teas to take home.

The next few months I’ll continue to work with the Hartlepool Museum Service, this time in the NHS hospital in the town. my other upcoming workshops include Colourful Blackout Poetry and Life Drawing ( not me as the model luckily) for Pimms and Needles lots of bits and bobs of workshops and consultancy work and planning for the Christmas Markets. Busy… very busy!