York Zine Fest at Homestead Park
Hello from us, York Zine Fest x Abundance Press.
We are Nic Fife, Chloe Heffernan and Jade Blood. Homestead Park Pavilion is home to our riso printer (Rita) and where you can find us on Fridays!
Two Fridays a month, we run free drop-in workshops and events which range from ‘Community Journal Making’ to zine making and seasonal arts based activity! We have an (in progress) zine library, zine making and embroidery materials as well as our Rita!
York Zine Fest was co-founded by Jade Blood and Kayti Peschke in 2018; it has run biannually on DIY principles to celebrate self publishing, subculture and paper based paraphernalia! YZF collaborates with other grassroots groups to provide free events and workshops for everyone. Two years ago, Kayti moved away so now we welcome Nic Fife and Chloe Heffernan, and begin our small press ‘Abundance Press’.
After a Spring and Summer of public workshops in York and a big summer Zine Fest celebration, we came to the end of our ‘Hope’ project for JRF. We reflected and collated all of the lovely work that people made at a banner making workshop with artists Chris Alton and Emily Simpson, poster riso printing with Black Lodge Press and a ‘buffet style’ workshop with ourselves and special guests. We printed our first publication at The Pavilion at Homestead (which is available to peruse and take home from Homestead Park for free on Fridays when we are there!)
We have been busy starting up a ‘community press’ and have put together a programme of workshops for the public which lead us up to Christmas. Our new press aims to operate on a co-operative model, in which people can time bank/exchange for printing with us. We hope the space will shape into a public zine library and make space for park users and also for the lovely community of gardeners at the park.
So far we have hosted an ISSP (independent and state school partnership) workshop which saw pupils across York make and print their very own newspaper over a week in summer with Jade. Chloe and Jade ran some badgemaking and riso printing workshops for Make Space, in which we explored what girls want from Rowntree Park and public spaces. Nic and Chloe have been busy collating and printing a zine for Gaza, in which they put out an open call to the public to contribute.
We also had our very first money-less exchange by printing the Arts Barge programme in exchange for moving Rita from a workshop! We were excited to open again for our community newspaper session (Oct 17) and spooky fun (Oct 31); the drop ins so far have sparked such brilliant conversation.
Nic Fife, Chloe Heffernan and Jade Blood, November 2025