The fayre was held at Treehouse Cafe, Bradford and kicked off at 1pm with a wide range of stalls from distros including Manifesta, Lola and the Cartwheels, ZNA and BD7 Punks, Claptrap, Subtext, some bradford anarchists, Adventures in Menstruating, On't Road, Footprint, plus a Free shop and a vintage clothes stall. Zine subjects ranged from comics like Morgenmuffel and free anarchist literature through to glossy Subtext magazine and brand new perzines such as 'every text my girlfriend ever sent me' and 'looking out of your window' from local bradford zinesters.

Some ace workshops swung us into the afternoon, Chella and Sarah from Adventures in Menstruating did some stuff about SDUs [sanitary disposal units...those god-awful dustbin design flaws in women's toilets designed to make you feel like a dirty no gooder every time you have to change your tampon] and the attendance was great. Cat and Adam taught us how to knit and Simon helped us make our own needle felt, including an outstanding fluffy handlebar moustache!

After spending the afternoon stuffing our faces with cute vegan cupcakes and gathering large armfuls of zines and new recipe books we all had to have a good sit down outside and enjoy the good weather and the sounds from the solar powered soundsystem.

The evenings events saw the basement room absolutely packed with an audience eager to hear the zine readings, poetry and beats from Adventures in Menstruating, Joel's poetry accompanied by Simon on double bass [including a cover of 21st century pop song by Hymie's Basement], Pete from Alt-Track plus lots more local musicians and poets. A venture into the poetry realm was a new and exciting journey for many of us.

We all got to meet new people and make links and friends and generally have an ace time! With around 80 people attending over the whole day we were all so happy to be spending a day doing what we loved with new mates and old.

Thanks to everyone who came along and everyone who helped make it happen, especially everyone from Claptrap, we'll see you next year for Bradford Zine Fayre II!

If you want to get in contact with someone about the Zine Fayre or just want to get involved with zines in Bradford chuck us an email at  bradfordzines@hotmail.co.uk or see the Claptrap zine blog at  http://claptrapzine.blogspot.com/