Current ZFH Co-organizers
María-Elisa Heg is a curator, cartoonist, and organizer with Zine Fest Houston living in Houston since 2005. She received BAs in Medieval Studies and Visual & Dramatic Arts from Rice University in 2009 and an MA in Arts Leadership from UH in 2019. Since then she has been active in various capacities as an activist and artist, participating in shows at the Blaffer Art Museum, CentralTrak (Dallas, TX), Hardy & Nance Studios, Matchbox Gallery, and the Caroline Collective. She has also participated in various festivals including The Portland Zine Symposium, NOCAZ, and STAPLE!. She has been organizing with Zine Fest Houston since 2012 and is currently a Digital Content Manager at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
Anastasia “Stacy” Kirages, a Houston-based collage artist and zinester, explores themes of memory, history, nostalgia, and preservation. In her work, she utilizes found ephemera through collage and zine-making to reflect on her own family history and relationships, and to create fictionalized memories in new contexts. The artist earned a M.Ed in Reading Education from Texas Woman’s University and a BA in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin. This past year she enjoyed teaching a class about zines and analog making in the Photo & Digital Media Block Program at the University of Houston. Currently, she runs a monthly collage meet-up group with artist Chasity Porter called Scissors of Texas/Tijeras de Tejas and has also been a lead organizer for Zine Fest Houston (ZFH) since 2013. In addition to her work with ZFH, she volunteers with Black & Pink, Girls Rock Camp Houston, and Montrose Grace Place. Her work has shown nationally and internationally, which you can check out online at https://kllages.com/home.html or on Instagram: @k.llages.
Ruben Ramires is a queer artist originally from Portugal. His minimalist and quirky illustrations/poetry are autobiographical, melancholic, and inspired by mental health, and nature.
Patrick Brooks is a Houston-based zine designer/publisher. His primary focus is a family-friendly invitational zine, hey everybody… Let’s make a zine! He has also created a zine for Aurora Picture Show’s twentieth anniversary, five editions of an activist zine targeted towards saving the River Oaks Theatre and various one-off projects. He has been tabling at Zine Fest Houston since 2013 and has been a ZFH organizer starting with the 2021 edition. He hopes to fix his website, west23rdstreet.org any day now.
Sarah Welch is an artist, illustrator, and comics-maker. She is part of the printmaking duo Mystic Multiples and a co-organizer for literary & visual arts organization, Zine Fest Houston. Welch likes to garden, build things, play with clay, and haunt the thrift store. She is currently working with San Jacinto Community College theater on the original play, “The Pits,” about the Brio Superfund site in southeast Houston.
ZFH Co-organizers Emeritus
Ruslan Kalitin is a Houston-based artist, cartoonist and zinester. His works range from linocut gravures, comic books, and zines to watercolor art books. Representative books are graphic novels: ‘Silver Sedans’, ‘Magnolia’, and ‘Valenki’. Recently he is into art-zines, where color and story are being injected into readers’ blood.
Evan McCarley is an organizer, performer and photographer born and raised in Houston, TX. After studying Art History at University of North Texas in 2008, she moved back to Houston and immersed herself in the local music and arts community. She co-facilitated CounterCrawl, a local arts event, from its second to sixth iteration, and performed with Continuum Performance Art from 2012 to 2015. Evan was a member of the artist board and a lead volunteer for Lone Star Explosion International Performance Art Biannale in 2014, and co-founded Experimental Action Performance Art Festival. She also serves as a lead organizer for Zine Fest Houston. She has performed original work at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, The Byzantine Fresco Chapel, and DiverseWorks. Her performances examine themes such as experimenting with human interaction, secrecy and communication. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Fine Arts at University of Houston-Downtown. Follow her 35 mm photo Instagram: @rotatingdance
Lindsey Simard assisted shane as ZFH organizer and eventually passed on the fest to Stacy and María.
shane patrick boyle (1969 – 2017) was the founder, torchbearer, historian, and guide of Zine Fest Houston. From its early beginnings in the 90s, shane kept zine culture alive and created the foundations of this rich community. shane patrick boyle was a graduate of the University of Houston with a major in creative writing and a minor in LGBT studies. During his many years in Texas, he founded and helped organize the early years of Zine Fest Houston. He spent his time between Houston and Mena, AK, where he cared for his mother. He coalesced and held together a network of DIY artists and makers that still gather from all over southeast Texas and beyond for the festival he helmed, and was the founder of the Houston Area Comics Society.
shane, who always spelled his name in all lower case letters, was a gentle soul and much beloved by his community. We honor his memory and miss him always.
Zine Fest Houston co-organizers at the 2024 fest. L-R: Ruben, Sarah, María, Stacy & Patrick. Photo by Michael Mayer.
Zine Fest Houston co-organizers after the 2023 fest. L-R: Ruslan, Sarah, Stacy, Ruben, Patrick and Evan. Inset: photo of María and the newborn Augie (future ZFH organizer). Photo by Michael Mayer.