A FUTURE by A.C. Howard

"In a near future, a network of organizers work to relocate trans youth who live in parts of the United States where they aren’t able to be out safely. Through this network, Nat picks up Mira, a teenage girl from Pierre, South Dakota, and gives her a ride to Massachusetts. On the way, they stay with some of Nat’s old friends, and Mira gets an idea of what her life might be like."

Maine-made and each zine is individually bound with a hand printed cover

In this well-contained road story, steady sources of kindness offset the discomfort of a young person journeying far beyond their hostile point of origin. The narrative gracefully portrays the awkwardness in their displacement and thrill felt in rapidly establishing new reference points for them to build off from as their world expands. Deliberate subversion of power structures and the careful guidance evident in the relocation network recalls the scrappy web of resources overlaying an assortment of radical libraries, infoshops, cooperative houses, DIY venues, Food Not Bombs chapters and other countercultural stops which dotted the US several decades ago, prior to the wonderless charting and overall refinement of social connections by our more widespread incorporation of the internet. The avenues here are not synonymous, and that lack of explicit association with any activist tradition reads as a strength, in that the excitement felt by the teenage Mira easily carries onto the reader through a gentle reminder that our lives may also be redefined as we face the unknown, with meaningful connections and weight to the manner in which we approach them.

 Also from this author, A Zine About Quiche and Car Seat Headrest