Q&A with Rae White

Rae White is a non-binary transgender poet, writer and zinester living in Brisbane, Australia. Their poetry collection Milk Teeth (University of Queensland Press) won the 2017 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, was shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry and commended in the 2018 Anne Elder Award. Rae’s poem ‘what even r u?’ placed second in the 2017 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Their poetry has been published in Cordite Poetry Review, Meanjin Quarterly, Overland, Rabbit and others. Rae’s zines cover many topics including poetry, plants, rabbits, feminism and life as a non-binary person. They are the editor of #EnbyLife, a journal and zine for non-binary and gender diverse creatives.

When and why did you start making zines?

I had my very first poem published in Woolf Pack zine, a super rad biannual femzine from Brisbane. It inspired me to read as many zines as I could and start creating my own.

What is your favourite thing about zines?

My favourite thing is zine communities because they’re such welcoming, encouraging and wholesome spaces. Zine trades/swaps at fairs is another of my other fave things – swapping art for art with fellow creatives feels like a big middle finger to capitalism.

Do you have a favourite zine (aside from your own!)? What is it and why do you like it?

I have many many favourite zines! I just went through my entire zine collection to answer this question and it was tough to choose just one. In the end I picked Dessa Bayrock’s ‘Lost Things’. It’s a small zine about the author finding ‘traces of people’ in library books, such as notes, grocery lists and business cards. I love finding wonder in the mundane and making art from the everyday, hence why I really loved this zine.

You can see Rae’s zine Junk Poems from my Spam Folder here