I am originally from Austria (from a village with 800 people in the middle of the Alps) but am living currently in San Diego, California. I am 30 years old and my passion are zines (surprise, surprise). I have been a co-editor of a (maga-)zine in Vienna called female sequences, which focused on women/feminist artists, musicians, scholars, and activists in 1999. Now I am interested in the international zine scene and not only running this web site, but also putting together zine exhibits and workshops. In October 2001, I participated in a show in Porto, Portugal called "First Story - Women Building/New Narratives for the 21st Century". I collected international grrrl zines and did a workshop. Here you can find some information on the exhibition itself and on me and my project. But this wasn't the last zine exhibit, many have already followed and will follow...

I have also beeen part of a group called Grrrl Zines A-Go-Go. We have conducted workshops mostly for teenage girls in the San Diego area. Since I have moved back to Salzburg, Austria in March 2006 (after living 5 years in San Diego), the group has continued to conduct workshops. They rock!

I am also doing (academic) research on alternative media (or citizens' media), feminism and social change. I have written my dissertation on "The Global Grrrl Zine Network: A DIY Feminist Revolution for Social Change" (funded by the Austrian Academy of Science) (at the Institute for Theory, Practice and Mediation of Contemporary Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria) as well as my master's thesis on "Do-It-Yourself: Feminist Artistic Practice in Zines and Magazines." From 2003-2005 I have been doing postdoctoral research at UCSD about discourses of social change in international grrrl zines (funded by the Austrian Science Fund). Now, I am back in Salzburg, Austria, and am working on converting this web site into a database, so that searching after zines to specific topics etc. will be easier. I'd like to combine being an activist/cultural worker and researcher benefiting the community. Let me know if you'd like to know more!

You can check out an interview Veruska from Clit Rocket (Italy) and Freewheel Zinedid with me (2003) (in English): http://www.freewheelzine.co.uk/itw/elke.htm

Or the interview in Malmoe (in German), 2005:
http://www.malmoe.org/artikel/funktionieren/833

Some of my articles are also online:
Sparking Revolutions in Hearts and Minds: In Conversation with Grrrl Zine Editors from around the World (Women in Action, Isis International-Manila.No. 2, 2003).

The Power of Pen Publishing: International feminist zines and distros. In: Feminist Collections: A Quarterly of Women’s Studies Resources. The University of Wisconsin, USA. Vol. 26, no.1, Fall 2004, 20-24.

For more articles I have written check the writing section of this web site.