The idea behind Dear Diary Zine Fest began when a couple of seasoned East Bay zinesters felt jaded about the current state of zine fests. Disappointed with the high number of expensive art zines and low number of trashy, cut-and-paste zines, we decided to start a new kind of zine fest. Dear Diary Zine Fest, a text-heavy fest full of feelings, aims to amplify marginalized voices and celebrate the healing and transformative power of telling our stories through perzines. Some of our favorite zines are perzines, some of our favorite zines were made last minute using whatever scraps of paper that were lying around, nothing fancy. We want this to be for the freaks, the queers, people with no online presence, people too shy to submit to fests, younger folks, first time, and long time zine makers. Let it all out and share it with us!