Eman Alhaj Ali holding her new zine, “The Mirror of Memory”

Multiple writers with We Are Not Numbers have turned to zines—self-published, small-run magazines or booklets—to disseminate their work and earn money from their writing.

Zines are self-published, small-run magazines or booklets.

WANN writers have published with collectives such as Coastal Lines Press and The Zines for Falastin Project.

“A flotilla of zines has launched from Gaza for distribution around the world,” proclaims Coastal Lines Press. “We publish independent booklets of poetry, essays, and testimonies that travel like vessels from coast to coast, turning words into vital aid for our families.”

“Over the past 13+ months, we have collectively witnessed unprecedented and unfathomable levels of destruction of nearly all public and civic infrastructure, and carnage of far too many civilian lives, in Gaza, Palestine,” according to Zines for Falastin. “Amidst these daily massacres of precious lives and land, we have also witnessed Palestinians in Gaza embody the spirit of these lines by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, ‘We have on this earth what makes life worth living.’ In this daily resistance, Palestinians have become the impossible incarnate in our eyes.

“However, ultimately, we are all kin, their blood bleeds like ours, and their tears blurs our vision and aches our insides alike. Our project, then, was born of a rather simple yearning, a yearning to build a bridge between our worlds and listen to our kin on the ground, in Gaza, in Palestine, in this unimaginable reality. With the hope that such bridges, ultimately, become unshakeable and invincible, leading us into the inevitability of a Free Palestine.”

Individuals who make a donation to the creator’s fundraising page are sent their choice of a digital or hard-copy of the writer’s zine.

WANN writers who have published zines include:

Nour Abo Aisha, “I Am Not A Number” (illustrated by Veronica Petrie)

Esraa Albanna, “To the World: A Comic from Gaza” (illustrator, written by Jehad Abu Dayya)

Eman Alhaj Ali,  “The Mirror of Memory: what remains and what must be understood”

Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi, “Gaza Calling: Will the World Pick Up?”

Dima Ashour, “Questions on my mind: Musings about Gaza, my home, and the things I’ve lost” 

Shahd Alnaami, “The Writings of Shahd Alnaami”

Mariam Khateeb, “The City’s Memory” (writer, illustrated by Billy Ruffian)

Cover of Mariam Khateeb’s zine