2026 COMING SOON! Follow Zia Clara with zines!

Dear Reader,

Historical fiction is created by combining true events with the creative aspect of the writer’s perspective. This blog is such a work and is based upon my Zia Clara’s  journal of recorded daily events from 1966-1967 when she lived in Italy. Included as “random” thoughts are poems, recipes, & tidbits on historical events. Through each post I re-create her life into a fictitious one, with true events as the backdrop. Zia Clara’s life had a profound influence on my own as a child in the U.S. during the late 1950s through the 1960s.

Her elegance, independence, and dedication to family laid a foundation for choices I would make later in my own life. Her journal was a gift to me, and it is through her own words, and my twenty years as an artist, that I hope to bring you some small glimpse of my zia.

2025 . A Zine with a Story: The Case of the Confused Numbers

2024. Droppings & Celebrations

“The Art of Beth Curren Issue #B!” 2024 to celebrate her one-woman exhibition, Marking Time: Maps and Memories, at Studio Gallery, D.C.

Droppings: Small Pocket Publications

The COVID Collection in the Library of Congress

Twelve-months during 2020-2021, inkjet print, 3″x 4″ – 8 page, folded publication that highlights artists, authors (children’s & adult) or intimates who have had an influence on my work. Each issue pulls together facets/art/writing/lives of these lives. Each contains resources for further reading.

• Beatrix Potter, Children’s author and illustrator Issue A
• Beth Curren, Washington, D.C. artist Issue B
• May Sarton, Author and poet Issue C
• Phyllis Goodnow, Artist and calligrapher Issue D
• Tomie dePaola Children’s author & illustrator Issue E
• Helen C. Frederick , American Artist & Educator Issue F
• Ichiro Endo & John L. Vaught, Engineers Issue G
• Lou & Di Stovall, Washington, D.C. artists, Issue H
• Mary Oliver, Poet, Issue I
• My Sisters, Muses, Issue K
• The Cats, Muses II, Issue L
• My Students, Issue Z

This collection is included in the Zine Collection at the Library of Congress in 2024. These are no longer available.

What IS a zine?

According to The University of Texas Library Guides “A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published unique work of minority interest, unusually reproduced via photocopier.”

See the above link for more information on this topic!