The artwork for Alt Press Fest 2026 was created by Kruttika Susarla, our featured artist.
ABOUT ALT PRESS FEST
Alt Press Fest is an annual celebration of zines and DIY publishing. For nearly two decades, the Festival has hosted local creators who sell, share, and trade their self-produced zines, prints, stickers, and other artistic works. The event also includes panels, workshops, and hands-on demonstrations to inspire the zinesters of tomorrow!
The City Library supports zines year-round with zine-making clubs and workshops. As one of the first public libraries to have a zine collection, the Library now has thousands of zines from all over the world that can be borrowed just like any other item! You can search for zines in the online catalog, visit the collection on Level 2 of the Main Library, or find smaller zine collections at any City Library branch.
SCHEDULE
SAT, OCT 17, 2026
12–5PM
Stop by to meet some of the inspiring DIY-publishers from our local zine community. Browse zines and art for sale, try out free activities, take a zine/leave a zine at the Trading Wall, and catch discussions with authors and artists in the auditorium.
1–2PM - Author Talk with Chad Anderson
Auditorium
Chad Anderson is a father, social worker, and writer based in SLC. Chad will discuss his autobiographical graphic novel, Gay Mormon Dad. A book signing will follow.
3–4PM - Artists Panel
Auditorium
Some of the artists and authors tabling at Alt Press Fest will gather for a panel discussion and Q&A. Join us as Chad Anderson, Kruttika Susarla, Remi Germaine, and Kit Cactus share their processes and insights as independent zine-makers.
Alt Press Fest 2026 is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation.
FEATURED ARTIST
Kruttika Susarla is an illustrator and cartoonist from Andhra Pradesh, India, working across editorial illustration, picture books, lettering, and comics. She collaborates with community-engaged organizations in the US and the Global South to create books, zines, and toolkits.
Her narrative work is bright, bold, and textural. Kruttika’s work for The Freedom Sisters (Pratham Books, 2024) won a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators (SOI). It was juried into the Illustrators 67th Annual Exhibition in NYC and was exhibited at the 2026 Bologna Children’s Book Fair as part of SOI’s exhibit.
Her self-published comics tell stories of connection, community, and labour. Her comics have been exhibited internationally, including at the Erlangen Comic Salon in Germany and the Fumetto Comic Festival in Switzerland. In 2026, she won the MoCCA Arts Festival Award of Excellence for Albo! (self-published, 2025) and in 2025, she won the Paper Rocket Publishing award for Alexander’s Curse (self-published, 2024).
ZINE COLLECTION
The City Library has almost 2,000 zines in its collection. Since the collection’s founding in 1997, the library has hosted events celebrating zines, a tradition that grew into the launch of Alt Press Fest in 2008. The collection was started by Julie Bartel and has been maintained by librarians like Brooke Young, Rachel Getts, and Pablo Abarca. The collection aims to provide a space for alternative press that otherwise would be undermined by more popular mainstream media sources. This brings different narratives and information access to communities.
SUBMIT A ZINE
If you would like to submit a zine for consideration to the library’s collection, bring a copy of your zine to any of the locations that house the Zine Library:
- Main Library
- Day-Riverside Branch
- Marmalade Branch
- Sweet Branch
- Sprague Branch
Submit your zine to a librarian. At the Main Library, submit your zine via the Level 2 donation box.
HISTORY OF ZINES
What is a zine, you say? Well, it's usually an 8½ x 11-inch sheet folded into a little pocket booklet, or sometimes it’s a fully illustrated comic with the look and feel of a commercially published book. So, the format of a zine can vary. The main thing about a zine is that it is usually done by one person or small group, and they are self-publishing information that is either for a small niche community or touching on alternative topics and opinions. Some zines continue a DIY feel or aesthetic look, but really any published work can be a zine as long as the creator intends it to be.
Historically, zines have been used as a platform by marginalized communities, cultures, sexuality, and alternative forms of arts, to share information. Zines — short for “magazines” — have appeared in various forms since 1517. Modern zines first appeared in the 1920s and have evolved through the decades. In today’s zine era, communities that revolve around music, art, and culture are expressed through alternative forms of press, hence the name Alt Press Fest.
SOURCE: Cornell University Library, 8/10/2023, Zines: 101 History and Culture