Dear Fearless Writer
- 5 days ago
- 9 min read
Are you fearless? Is anyone? Should we be? A vignette about how taking a small leap can help manage fear of failure, fear of trying, fear of caring.
These two zine covers are mine (left) and my 10-year-old loved one's (right). (Images: B.G. Merkle, © 2026) [Note to readers: I can't get this blog platform to display alt text for galleries of 2+ images. Please see footnote one for the alt text for these images.]
Dear Troublemakers,
I'm going to tell you a story about an art project I did with a child. It's going to have an "and then, and then, and then" structure. So, hang in there with me, and we'll get to the so-what that I've been pondering ever since. It's a so-what I think you'll find more relevant to academia and scicomm life as a “big kid” than seems obvious on the surface.
***
A few weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of spending the weekend with children I love and adore. One of these kids gets as excited about making art as I do! Yippeeeee!
So, we planned to make an art retreat out of the weekend. After considering our many art-making options, we decided to make collage zines to submit to the Biggest Little Zine Fair in Long Beach and the Seattle Printers Guild's upcoming six-month pop-up zine store.
I've made zines in the past, as part of a book arts course and as a tool for helping children create their own, mini, one-day field journals. But I'd never made a zine just for fun with the intent of sending it out in the world for possible sale/distribution! The kiddo I was collaborating with had never heard of zines and never made one. So, I showed him my favorite format, which can be created by a few folds in a single piece of paper and making a single cut.
Because I've been spending most of my art time on collage for a while, I have piles of magazines and other goodies. My little buddy thought a food wrapper with a muscle-man rooster was hilarious and decided to build his whole zine around that buff chicken. As his concept progressed, it turned into a "ransom note" zine clarifying all the things the zine was not about.
Among other things, this zine is about Not(h)ing But a Strong Chicken, no monsters, no woodpeckers, no noses. See footnote 2 for alt text. (Images: B.G. Merkle, © 2026 on behalf of the kiddo who is the actual copyright holder here.)
Illustrating gatekeeping, writer's block, and self doubt
Meanwhile, I wanted to experiment with an accordion-fold approach to the one-sheet zine. This format allows for many more pages. Once I found a template [3] and set up my piece of paper accordingly, I started tearing apart old marketing materials (from the place were I got my 40th-bday typewriter) and splashing around with some old stamps and desiccated ink pads. I'm also a lifelong fan of newspaper comics and always have a pile on hand for gift wrapping. I started cutting out speech bubbles, and one thing led to another.
Zines in process. (Images: B.G. Merkle, © 2026, including last one on behalf of the kiddo who is the actual copyright holder) [See footnote 4 for alt text.]
As regular readers here know, I'm a writer and a teacher of writing, so writer's block and the inner (and external) critic are often on my mind. These challenges frequently pose a significant emotional and practical barrier to the students I support. Using speech bubbles from newspaper comics, I ultimately created a tense dialog between a writer and their worst critic (perhaps themself, perhaps a gatekeeper who negatively impacted their sense of confidence and creativity). The zine and the dialog ultimately conclude with a positive intervention (from a mentor, or the writer's own intuition) to reframe the work (and struggle) of writing as achievable and meaningful (and human, not generated by a bot!).
I took frequent, welcome breaks from creating my zine whenever my art buddy needed help finding more Ns, more Os, and/or cutting out something in finer detail than scissors allowed. (He and I both agreed I should be the keeper of the x-acto knives!)
Reaching for the world
Once we were done crafting our physical zines, I used my basic, old printer to scan them. I then cleaned them up in Photoshop [5] and built a printable file for the Strong Chicken zine. Then, after dinner on our last evening together, we sat at the computer and submitted his zine to BLZF and SPG's submissions calls.
A week or so later (on his birthday!!!), the SPG accepted his zine and asked for ten copies shipped to them for their zine store opening later this month! Of course, my dear little art buddy was delighted. I was visiting at his house then, so we spent a couple of evenings printing, folding, cutting, and gluing the duplicates into sale-able shape.
Making zine replicates and sending them into the world. (Images: B.G. Merkle, © 2026, including last one on behalf of the kiddo who is the actual copyright holder) [See footnote 6 for alt text.]
Why this story hits me in the feels
It is, perhaps, obvious that this is a wonderful outcome for an art-oriented child and his artsy adult friend (me). It's also great that my Dear Fearless Writer zine was also accepted by the Seattle Printer's Guild! But that's not what has me reflecting on this weeks later.
This little guy made about three dozen copies of his zine, because a stranger said his art mattered. He addressed an envelope for the first time and put his zines in it. We sent his art out into the world, to be exhibited and sold.
Like this kiddo, I too drew constantly as a child. But I didn't know it was possible to make a living (or even a bonus bit of cash) from art until I was in my 20s. My family was appreciative of my aptitude and the skill developed from obsessive practice. I was encouraged to keep doing art all through childhood. I even won the senior high school art award from our local artist's group. But, I'm from a low-income family with limited connection to any kind of art. My parents finished high school, my grandpa only completed eighth grade. No adults around me identified as artists. We knew no one who made a living off their art, though my grandparents were by then comfortable enough to purchase a local artist's western nostalgia painting once a year during our tiny town's hospital foundation fundraiser.
I'm not saying poorer people have no capacity to understand and value art, in any form or style. But I am saying that it can be very hard for low-income folks in rural, low-population environments to access, interact with, learn about, or understand how to make money from art. When we did get anywhere near art, it was as spectators, not as makers. And most of that art skewed heavily western, whether classical or modern in style.
It took most of my adulthood, and well into trying to make a living from art and writing, to really connect with other artists. It also took me that long to call myself an artist. To acknowledge what that label meant to my sense of myself. What it meant to my friends and family. It's telling that they perceived me as an artist long before I did. [7]
What does it mean to call yourself something you aspire to and value?
I take two layers of meaning from this convergence between my long arc to self-recognition as an artist and the way these zines are offering much earlier validation to my young artist buddy.
It is dangerous and contradictory to affirm others but not ourselves. When we disavow, doubt, suppress, and otherwise downplay our personal affinity for anything creative (and perhaps aptitude with, though competency isn't necessary and isn't automatic), we offer a really shite example to other people who we almost certainly would encourage to affirm themselves. Which of our mentees or colleagues is going to take us at our word, push through their own self-doubt, fear of judgement, and shame about not being pro-level yet...when we're not doing it either!?
Embracing ourselves is key to being a good role model. Embracing my identity as an artist--something that this boy I know doesn't yet fully realize he can aspire to--can make a huge difference for him. That's because the earlier we offer people these role models, the earlier we affirm their own instincts and hold doors of self-concept and self-definition open to them. And part of that work is making visible and transparent the effort it takes to create, the choices we weigh if we decide to monetize what we make, and the real work required to make any money at all from our creations.
So what does this mean for academic and academic-adjacent folks?
At the risk of explaining "the fable" into blandness:
We can help students, peers, and mentees see scholarship, teaching, etc., as meaningful by being candid about the parts of it we identify with, where we struggle, and why we keep choosing this kind of work.
We must be transparent about the tension between labor and compensation, and between what that should look like vs. what it does...and how we can work together to shift that balance for the better.
Creative thinking, innovation, and outright creation are intrinsic to scholarly work and most science and science-adjacent professions. Perpetuating the false dichotomy between art and science is harmful and needs to stop. In its stead, we need to provide and seek out opportunities to practice creative thinking, making, communicating, and to recognize where we are already doing such work.
Fear of failure is holding too many of us back from doing our best, most meaningful work. From making connections with others in and beyond academia that can make the world a better place. Trying things we're not already good at is a key part of overcoming or at least working past these fears. (So is creating and holding safe/brave spaces for other people to do so.)
How about you?
What sorts of creative practices do you turn to when you're trying to push through fear, reluctance, etc.?
NOTES
[1] Alt text for the header image: Left-hand zine cover features a background made from a star stamp, in ked with blue ink. Overtop are torn fragments of paper upon which are typed the text: "Dear Fearless Writer". Beneath is a "delete" icon/trash can sticker with a speech bubble (cut from a newspaper comic). The speech bubble reads: Is everything okay? Right-hand zine cover is a collaged title made from letters cut out of magazines (akin to a ransom note). The text reads noting but a strong chicken, intended to be nothing but a strong chicken. Beneath the text is a cut-out from a food wrapper of a ridiculously muscular rooster, rendered in yellow body with red lines. The rooster looks like a body builder.
[2] Alt text for the gallery of no monsters, etc.: Gallery shows three pages of Strong Chicken zine. Left: two collaged NOs, along with an indistinct stamped texture and a sticker of a cute, blue and green monster. Middle: A large NO cut out of a cloudy blue sky image, with a red-headed woodpecker pecking at the N. Left: a nose with a cloud of colorful NOs surrounding it, all cut out from magazines.
[3] From the book How to Make Books: Fold, Cut & Stitch Your Way to a One-of-a-Kind Book (publisher link)
[4] Alt text for zine-making in progress: Left: A hand holds down the cover of the Dear Fearless Writer zine, with scraps of paper glued to the cover and more scraps and cut-out speech bubbles on the surface surrounding the zine. Middle: Hand holding open the Dear Fearless Writer zine, showing a torn image of a person's mouth and chin with hands folded up under the chin, and cut-out speech bubbles. Right: both zines side by side, surrounded by scissors, glue stick, stickers, and many paper scraps.
[5] Photoshop is useful but expensive, and the learning curve if you're new to it can be daunting. Here's a link to some free alternatives. (Caveat: I don't personally have much experience with these programs, so YMMV.)
[6] Alt text for gallery of zines being prepped for mailing: Left: view looking down at top of a child's head and hands, to see the child holding down a copy of the Strong Chicken zine with one hand and holding a glue stick in the other. A pile of more copies of the zine is visible at the top of the frame. Right: Child's handwriting on a large manilla envelope, with a stack of Strong Chicken zines sitting on top.
[7] One of my college friends was suspicious of my commitment to my now-husband because I didn't represent myself as an artist back then, and so my then-boyfriend didn't think of me as one...while that friend and most of my friends from that era absolutely did!
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