What would you tell an artist considering attending a N.O.W. project?

"Fasten your seat belt and be sure your seat and tray table are in the upright and locked position."

"Attend! The projects are well-planned and offer a safe place to try new things and be creative."

"If they are looking for something that is going to get their creative energy flowing again, and something that is completely different from their day to day tasks, then a N.O.W. project is perfect for them!"

"Go for it and bring a sleeping bag."

"You won't know what's going to happen, you won't sleep, you'll work extremely hard, and you'll be happy you did it."

"Prepare to have some art facilitated."

"What do you have to lose, sucka?"

What five words would you use to describe your experience of The Zine Project?

"Intense, Camaraderie, Organized, Chaos, Astonishment."

"First, frustrating. Finally, incredibly rewarding."

"Challenging, Informative, Surprising, Creative, Collaboration."

"Crazy, Fulfilling, Challenging, New Connections."

"Intense, Gratifying, Creative, Different, Groundbreaking."

"Organized, Fun, Intensive, Interesting, Inspiring."

How has this project affected you since your return home?

"I feel intensely proud of what we were able to accomplish in a short time, and by that I mean not so much the product, which is wonderful, but the ability to bond and focus on a set of agreed goals, dispensing with, and celebrating, egos at the same time. Quite a feat."

"I have felt less cautious and more willing to do new things - more daring, I guess. The boundaries that seem to define who I am have expanded. I feel less constrained and more able to do whatever I want to do. I feel even more likely to go out of my way to support independent, interesting artists. I also joined an online collaborative community that works together to produce all sorts of art and media. I'm just getting my feet wet with it, but it's interesting and something I wouldn't have done before."

"I have loved being able to show the fruits of the weekend to my friends. They are all interested in what I do on these weekends, and it was great to finally show them something. It was also cool that no one put by-lines on their work, so everyone I showed the zine to were trying to figure out which were mine. I liked that!"

"I am inspired by the productivity of this project. I keep showing it off to everyone I know, and I'm anxious to demand a similar collaboration with my hometown friends."

"It's been nice to have a physical product to bring back with me. The sense of accomplishment from this project has stayed with me longer than in projects past. During the project I remember being surprised when we posted all of our ideas on the conference room window. I was surprised at the diversity of ideas that were there. People came up with things that I would never have come up with on my own. It reminded me that I can always push myself to push my boundaries more and think outside of whatever box I've put myself in. Since being back I've tried to apply that. I've try to find new ways of looking at things and different ways of expressing myself."

"This project helped me remember that I can do cool shit in a weekend. I can find other artists to hang around. I can create something totally new."

"I've published poetry in several small journals, and the N.O.W. zine is, I think, the publication I'm most proud of—most likely to share with others. Why? It's not my contribution that particularly amazes me—it's the content as a whole: both the quality and the diversity of it. The whole shebang. Doubly amazing that we completed the project in 48 hours. So, I've been thinking a lot about guerrilla publishing, and I am planning to collect a couple of my recent stories in a self-printed chapbook for the few select friends who might appreciate them. In the past, these folks have received my stories one at a time on single-sided 8 1/2 by 11 printouts. The zine project got me thinking about slick packaging, and how much more accessible the content becomes in such a package. In this age of blogs and online journals, when print has been relegated to something of a luxury, why not deliver the flash and dazzle? They say don't judge a book by its cover, but who among us really believes that?"