During a recent workshop at Birnam Arts in Perthshire, I discovered how a simple folded booklet — a zine — can open space for creativity, conversation, and surprisingly natural English practice.
Yesterday I went to a zine-making workshop at Birnam Arts with someone staying with us at Blue Noun.
This Zine Club workshop is part of a research project led by Louisa Preston and supported by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland.
Louisa is an artist-publisher and researcher at the University of Stirling. Her project explores creative forms of publishing connected to arts organisations situated in remote and rural areas of Scotland. She leads workshops to introduce people in rural Scotland to zine making, explaining what a zine is – and what it can be.
At Blue Noun we look for experiences where conversation grows naturally from what people are doing together.
Louisa’s workshop was a perfect example.
So, What Is a Zine?
A zine (short for magazine or fanzine) is a small handmade booklet created by folding paper and filling it with images, words, drawings, and ideas.
Zines are personal, creative, and easy to reproduce by photocopying. Because they are informal and expressive, they are often used in art communities, activist publishing, and creative workshops.
You do not need special skills to make one.
You just begin
About the Workshop
The workshop began simply. We looked through the examples Louisa had brought.
Then she showed us the trick of folding a single sheet of A4 paper into a mini booklet — a blank object waiting to be filled.
Leafing through magazines to select images and words was grounding. I didn’t rush in. I sat with a coffee and flicked through the source material, noticing what drew my attention.
I didn’t start on the first page.
I began in the middle.
I found an illustration of a girl and a huge cheese. I saw myself in that image.
Winter and Spring Together
This week, the season is holding both winter and spring together.
Every time you meet someone new, they say, “Spring is just around the corner,” or “Did you see the sunshine yesterday?” (proving to R. that we Brits really do like to talk about the weather, see my blog:
→ 5 Funny Small Talk Tips | Learn English with British Culture
for more help making small talk).
When you walk outside, it is still cold and brown. But you can see the shoots of bulbs. In two days, we have gone from no crocus flowers to them being everywhere.
The girl and her cheese reminded me of the worst of winter.
But as I glued her onto the page, I felt the warmth of the sun on my back through the windows.
I don’t expect my zine page to communicate all of this to a reader.
But I felt it as I made it.
The process put me in touch with myself — how I was feeling — or in some way captured that moment. It created a lasting, resonant memory.
Around the Table
All around us were little snippets of conversation as we worked.
Often people wanted to explain and share the source magazines they were working from. An image they liked. An image they hated.
The source journals weren’t news-related, but lifestyle and history magazines. One was about mindset and had great ready-made headlines to cut out and paste in.
Louisa gave very few instructions after showing us how to fold the paper to get started.
She was making at the same time, but she only had scraps of pages. She said she struggles to get into the creating zone during a workshop. She’s happy pottering, but she doesn’t have the same ability to fall fully into making that everyone else at the table did.
I saw the joy and pride of people as they shared their pages. Self-conscious and genuinely proud of what they had achieved.
What Is a Zine For?
The ultimate purpose of a zine is not just to be made, but to be shared.
They can easily be photocopied and reproduced. If you photocopy full colour into black and white, interesting effects happen. You might decide to draw or colour onto your photocopy in a way that can scale.
Zines are simple. Reproducible. Expressive.
A Creative Way to Practice English
What interested me most was how naturally conversation appeared around the table. People explained images they had chosen, reacted to what others were making, and shared small opinions about the magazines in front of them. None of it felt like practising English, but language kept emerging.
An interview
When you first sat down and folded the paper into a booklet, what shifted in you physically or emotionally?
It felt like permission. The girls opposite were enjoying coffee from the café downstairs. I immediately bought us a coffee and a cup of tea for Robert and enjoyed that time flicking through the source material rather than rushing in.
Why did you begin in the middle rather than on the first page?
I began in the middle because I wanted my zine to have a theme or say something coherent, but I had no idea what it would be. Starting in the middle is an artist hack to postpone that decision.
Deciding that first would have held me back and pulled me into overthinking.
What was it about the girl and the huge cheese that felt like “you”?
The girl has a huge cheese before her and it is gloomy lighting. I feel like the darkness of Scottish winters — not the cold — affects my mood. It is easy to spiral into comfort eating, but it doesn’t help. My winters are often about my struggle to live well rather than do what feels good in the moment.
You described winter and spring co-existing. Did the zine give you language for something new?
No. I have already written about this. If I hide inside with cheese, I am out of touch with the landscape and the natural world. I am not. I have seen the river full of snowmelt and the first signs of spring all across our local wood. I am enjoying it.
The zine helped me articulate it.
What did you notice about R. during the workshop that you wouldn’t have seen in a classroom?
I admired that R. sat at the table and gave it a go. It is not easy doing this in a public space.
He was not as comfortable with the creative making part. He had no ideas about why people would make a zine, or a lifetime of knowledge of what zines could be and do, so it was harder for him.
He made a self-portrait using images of cycling, which was quite controlled. Then he saw what I was making and began colouring a bit more boldly.
I learned that he is open to new things, felt comfortable with me by his side, and that creative activities sometimes need to be explained a bit more thoroughly.
What kinds of English were being used around the table?
It was great for phrasal verbs, something R. wants to work on. He has a whole book of phrasal verbs with him. He initially wanted big lists of the buggers.
So after the session we went into his book and found the ones that had appeared in this context.
But it wasn’t just about spoken English. It was about the experience of being helped at a table where it is okay to be silent and it is okay to talk.
That is a wonderful thing for someone at the beginning of a holiday, when they are still building confidence.
The workshop leader mentioned that she doesn’t fully enter her own creative zone while hosting. What did that make you think about?
Anyone who holds dinner parties knows that you don’t sit and enjoy the meal in quite the same way as everyone else.
You create a space for others to have a really good experience, but it comes at a small cost to yourself. You are giving more so they can find their relaxation.
Holding a space may be an invisible skill, but it is a skill.
If someone said, “This is just cutting and sticking — how is this serious language learning?”
I would invite them to try it and see.
There is a lot of academic research on the benefits of making art or craft for mental health. The results are subtle. Sometimes too subtle for people who are very disconnected, or who are at the beginning of their wellbeing journey, to notice straight away.
I would ask them to try it and then ask themselves how they feel the next day. Is it the same, or has something shifted slightly in their mood, ideas, or the way they see and process the world around them?
I felt like I had discovered an escape hatch. Something that needs almost no creative skill to make something expressive. Something where the results don’t really matter.
In a language learning context, that is priceless.
Bringing Zine Workshops to Blue Noun Holidays
After taking part in this workshop, I have decided to integrate a zine session into our English holidays in Scotland from 2026.
Crafting and talking sit naturally together. The source magazines hold you in a kind of quiet wonder — images, headlines, fragments of stories waiting to be noticed. They spark conversations without forcing them.
A table like this also offers a gentle remedy to the feeling that everything needs to be perfect.
Zines don’t demand perfection. They invite curiosity.
You cut, arrange, glue, respond, and talk about what you see. Sometimes the English comes easily. Sometimes it comes slowly. Both are welcome.
And that combination — making something with your hands while language flows around the table — creates a very natural space for English to grow.
You can learn more about our English holidays in Scotland here:
Art, Design & Culture
Culture-led English learning
You can read more about what we mean by culture-led English learning, and how culture is best shared rather than taught — here.
→ Culture-Led English Learning: Best Practice for a Language Holiday
The Invisible Armature Supporting Calm, Confident English Experiences
Culture is one part of a wider, carefully designed approach.
You can read more about how English itself is held, structured, and designed here.
→ How English Is Designed Here
