my new Go Bag Zine is FINALLY here!

& how you can get your hands on one!

My new zine How to Build a Go Bag - Lessons and Checklists from the Parable of the Sower is officially here!

I have been working this zine in my sketchbook since November. Slowly responding to the creative prompts I wrote around becoming a resource. But when the fires hit in LA in January, I knew I had to speed up the process. This zine was my way to help people finally build a go bag while also raising money to help those displaced.

Everyone I talked to post election and during wildfire season shared with me that they did not have go bags. Even my friends around me in California, a place where the next “big quake” could hit at any point, and disasters like fires and landslides are the norm for us. This resource was critically needed in my community. I knew this had to be a universal feeling.

Finished zines photographed on my desk in the afternoon sun.

Back in November when I wrote those creative prompts, I was inspired by the story of Lauren Olamina’s go bag in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower. When bad things happen for Olamina, she was ready, and with plenty on hand to care for her community around her.

I applied my knowledge of day hiking, backpacking, camping, and compassionate disaster preparation to create a resource designed to help everyone. I am always the friend on hikes with ample blister tape, bandages, and snacks. I wanted to continue this effort. This zine combines playful gear drawings by category with checklists and tips to help you build your go bag.

Often when I see resources for disaster prep online, I find them to be really intimidating or scary. So often they are either full of too much information or frame everything in terms of apocalypse. I wanted to de-stigmatize go bags and do my part to help others feel prepared and safe.

The zine is broken into two sections:

1. What do you need if you have to leave ASAP

2. Simple, categorized pages to take away the overwhelm associated with long lists of items. The zine focuses on one category at a time and suggests building one category per day/week to get it right, depending on your personal capacity.

There are two versions of the zine available. One is a digital PDF download (available to everyone globally!) and the other is a physical copy (US shipping only) printed and assembled in my home studio!

The process of assembling the zine in my studio

Both versions of the zine are also fundraisers.

Here is the breakdown of where the money is going for both zines:

Each printed zine is $16.

• $7 of that will cover costs to produce (paper, toner, shipping materials, and labor)

• $9 will be mutual aid focused I’ll give $3 each to the organizations I chose

Each PDF Zine is $9.

• $3 of that will cover costs to produce (shop web hosting and labor)

• $6 will be donated, and I’ll give $2 each to the organizations I chose

This pricing structure allows me to split proceeds evenly, the money will be going to the following places:

World Central Kitchen

WCK is an incredible nonprofit providing comforting meals to residents and relief workers in need. They are currently working with local chefs to provide warm meals for folks still in the process of rebuilding.

Mutual Aid LA Network

The Mutual Aid LA Network (aka MALAN) is a fiscally sponsored nonprofit, and are focused on small, community solidarity projects and events. These are the types of things I want to support more and more as Mutual Aid is the future of organizing.

Mutual Aid Dena

I am doing something unconventional and plan to give the final third of funds directly to families on the Community Aid Dena list. This is a list of gofundmes for Black families displaced by the fires in Altadena. Being that this is both where Octavia Butler is from, and one of the first middle class neighborhoods for Black families in California. It is important to me to help protect these folks from shady developers and allow them the ablity to stay in the community they built.

You can also choose to give directly to these orgs by clicking on the links above.

As far as accountability and transparency with these donations, I will share reciepts monthly at the bottom of my my Creative Prompt email.

If you want to know even more, you can watch my new video on the process of making this zine and hear some tips on how to make your own.

I also used this zine launch to update my shop with my new stock of prints, stickers, and zines.

You can browse around and see what’s available to add to your order. I am really excited about the Tide Pools in Monterey and Gull at Dusk prints, but I also restocked my most popular Poppies and Lupine in the Sun, and Groves House Reading Room prints.

Screenshot from the shop update

Note: If you place an order and it prompts you to pay for both Zine Shipping and Print Shipping, that is a holdover error I am working to correct. Know that I will refund one of those options if you add a print to a zine order or a zine to a print order. You will only be charged once for shipping!

Lastly, I’ll leave you with this photo of my helper, Internet, ready to approve the final proof print of the zine.

That’s all for this one, creative prompts and info on our next Creativity Club coming next week. So excited for you all to get this zine in your hands!

Mel