ZINE Festival Wakayama is a zine sales event to be held on Monday, March 22, 2027 (national holiday) at the Wakayama Big Ai Exhibition Hall. Open 11:00–16:00, admission 500 yen. The event expects around 80 exhibitors and includes information for exhibitors such as booth specifications, participation fees, rules for delivery and sales, and the possibility of photography.

Today I ended up spending the day just grading the test results from last week's class... Sorry this isn't related to Zindies. 🙇

It's hot again today. In that heat, Kotomi-san, who helps with the ZINE, visited the shop. She went out of her way to bring the invoice for the ZINE that was delivered the other day. When I said an email would have been fine, she said, 'I wanted to meet and talk' ❤️ Thank you! A woman was intently looking at the books on the sales floor. When I spoke to her, she said she had read the article in the Yomiuri Shimbun — thanks to 'Bookstores, hooray'. But actually, she said she had heard my reading at an event at TOUTENBOOKSTORE in Kanayama a few years ago (!) and that it was the first time as an adult to have someone read to her; she was so moved she almost cried. When I checked photos — because I had done picture-book events several times at TOUTEN with my librarian colleague Ohashi during my librarian days — it seemed to have been the event on February 5, 2022. Has it already been four years? My face was pictured in the Yomiuri article, and that's how she knew I was at the current shop and came to see me. I'm truly grateful. We talked about various things, like the Momochihama library, the authors read there, and the Booksellers Award, and had a lively conversation. After she left, a young woman who had been listening to that conversation eagerly asked about the Booksellers Award. When we talked, she said she's a third-year high school student who reads a lot of novels and had read many of the Booksellers Award nominated works — I was surprised. There's a library near her home and she's been using it since she was little. She said she'd like to work part-time at a bookstore when she becomes a university student.

Today's event was a talk by Hisayuki Arai, who has worked for many years as an editor at Shinchosha. Arai originally came from Kyoto University's mystery club, and people like Ayatsuji were a little senior to him. He told us plenty of stories from the time when those mystery-obsessed students joined Shinchosha's editorial department — for example, episodes involving Ryūichi Tamura, the poet who was editor-in-chief of Hayakawa Mystery; anecdotes about Takashi Tachibana; his meeting with the then-young writer Kōtarō Isaka and how that led to publication; and, more recently, stories about Tomoya Sakurada, author of last year's much-discussed The Lost Face. We heard lots of stories you can only hear here. What a luxurious time! But I'm still disappointed we ran out of time and couldn't hear his stories about Masashi Sada. I'd like to invite him again next year to hear the rest and get an update on any new works. Thank you very much, Mr. Arai!

I was off today, but I went to check out蔵六湖畔, a share-style book café that opened about an eight-minute walk from Osu Kannon Station.

There are three events this week! Today was the first one: 「染よだかさんのおやつもぐもぐうたかい」. This event came right after the literary marche on the 1st where 染さん also took part—thank you for your efforts. This uta-kai was a casual gathering where we enjoyed the snacks 染さん brought and chatted while sharing impressions of tanka. There were as many as six participants (eight including 染さん and me)! Just talking about the poems everyone brought made the 90 minutes fly by. I was glad so many different people joined. We're planning a second meeting in November, so please look forward to it.

Today, starting at 12:00, the 4th Nagoya Ekishi-West Literary Marche was held, with seven people exhibiting. Because it was an extremely hot day, the venue was, unsurprisingly, hot and the exhibitors had a hard time. I'm thinking that from next year we should probably stop holding daytime events in the height of summer. Despite the heat, visitors kept coming, and there was an atmosphere where people could talk at leisure, so I think the exhibitors were able to interact with each other and with the customers who came. I don't often have the chance to meet so many creators at once, so it was a good opportunity to mingle. It was enjoyable, and new event ideas came up as well. In the evening, there was a shift to a library-related event. We welcomed Professor Takego Noguchi of Aoyama Gakuin University's Library and Information Science department, and I took part in a (somewhat presumptuous) conversation with him. The theme was 'reading barrier-free.' We based the discussion on 'Koko wa hon o kariru dake janai toshokan' (This Isn't Just a Library for Borrowing Books), which summarizes various initiatives I worked on during my time at the library. It was a low-key event, but many people gathered and Professor Noguchi seemed to really enjoy it. He gave the pleasant comment 'Let's do this again,' so I hope we can hold the next one somewhere around Tokyo.

Question the conventional wisdom about how we work! Based on research findings (evidence) from researchers around the world, why not reassess the "ways of working" we consider common sense? We will welcome Goryu Sato, a health economics researcher and full-time lecturer at Keio University, who recently published "The Science of Working" with Diamond Inc., to hear him speak.

We released a feature that lets creators generate portfolio PDFs. It also integrates with convenience-store print services such as Lawson and Famima (i.e., convenience stores other than 7-Eleven). You can generate a QR code on the site and print by scanning that QR code at the convenience store. The integration with convenience stores had been in place for a little while, but I wasn't satisfied with how the actual portfolio PDFs came out and remade them several times. I built it by analyzing data from works registered on Zindies, with conditions such as: creator and work descriptions (excluding extremely long ones) can be fully included, the layout doesn't look bad, and it fits on a single A4 sheet as much as possible. Because it's based on Zindies' pop design, some works might not suit it, but I think it meets the need for quickly creating something. After I wrote an article on note, I received a comment saying someone had used it right away, which made me very happy. I'm glad we made it.

The official website of イマZINE. It provides event information such as an overview, volunteer recruitment, guidance for vendors, and calls for participants for the novel-writing workshop (じゃれ本).

The story of publishing a tanka collection after only two months of writing tanka. This is the making of "SF Tanka: Proof of Teleportation Delay." I created it to encourage various people to try making their own books.

An anthology of short tanka that feel like tiny 31-character SF stories. From time paradoxes to convenience stores in space, it depicts everyday life in the future filled with humor and poignancy. === [Five Selected Tanka] The new time machine's warranty has its expiration date left blank In the hospital room, restoring a backup, my mother became a fifteen-year-old girl A white nape microchip that holds your past and all your lies Buying cookies at the Venus service area — they're probably from Earth anyway There is no Pluto anymore, is there? Earth is gone too — that gives away my generation === [Profile] Satoh Komori Born in Gifu Prefecture. Tanka poet and Cray-Pas (oil pastel) artist.

A jam-packed collection of my favorite sketches that I drew and saved in the little gaps on trains, buses, trips, and the like! 208×130cm / Cover 4P + Interior 16P / Full color

ZINE Fest held in Matsue, Shimane. Date and time: December 6, 2026, 11:00–16:00. Venue: Matsue Tersa, 4th-floor main conference room. Admission: 300 yen. Around 50 exhibitors are expected. This is a community-style doujinshi/ZINE event that provides information on exhibitor applications, booth specifications, and participation rules (including the possibility of photos being published, genres prohibited from sale, move-in regulations, and non-refundable exhibition fees).

　This week I was teaching a programming class at a university, so Zindies took a break. 　I don't feel like I rested at all — I'm actually exhausted — but for Zindies it ended up being a completely inactive week. 　It looks like it will be a little while before things resume.

After the event on the 25th, we were closed on Sunday and Monday. Sales this week have been really low, and I'm blaming the heat and the heavy rain. This weekend — tomorrow — there are two events, and it's also the opening day of a new nearby hotel. They're setting up a small library (shelf) in a corner of the hotel, and we delivered about 60 books from our shop. Because the hotel's concept is train carriages and rooms, we selected books focused on trains around central Nagoya, neighborhood walking guides, and the culture and history of the Mikawa and Owari regions. This evening the hotel staff came and they filmed an interview with me and took photos. It looks like they will be published on the website and social media. Just before closing, a man who came in gave a somewhat exaggerated comment: 'I didn't know there was a place in Nagoya that conveys culture.'

We mourn the recent passing of Keigo Higashino, a celebrated mystery novelist with ties to Aichi. Let's talk about your favorite works by Keigo Higashino. Those who are planning to read his works for the first time are also very welcome. The organizer is Kenji Kuroda, a Mephisto Prize–winning author and a big fan of Keigo Higashino.

Drinking is a way of knowing a city. When you drink in Osaka's downtown, you sometimes end up listening to strangers' life advice. You walk into a place you hadn't planned to visit, drink something you hadn't planned to drink, and before you know it you've lost your reason to go home. This book is based on countless experiences of walking, drinking, and getting drunk in Osaka's downtown, including Juso, and reflects on "Five things you need to get completely plastered in Osaka's shitamachi." Buy tomorrow's bread, then drink tonight. Don't exit the ticket gate at Juso. Don't trust 'just one skewer' of kushikatsu. Keep updating your 'I can walk home from here' judgment. And don't make excuses to go bar-hopping. This is not a manual on drinking. Maybe it's a guide to being swallowed by the city.