Pride month was a powerful and important month that was full of comradery with the Pridenton events going all month-long. We were proud to help represent Denton's queer community at the Night OUT at the Civic Center vendor-filled event. The pride events hit home for me the most. I get to see trans and queer youth being impacted by seeing my trans and queer art and zines. My work has a lot of bridges for trans parents to learn with, too, so I love the conversations I am fortunate to share with parents of queer youth or trans folks who feel empowered by my work. It brings me great joy and reminds me *why* I do this work for long hours. It's worth it, to see your smiling faces.

This month a significant moment in our career was submitting 'THE FOX WHO BECAME A GIRL' to the Denton Library system, bringing one copy but actually being requested to bring two more to give one to each branch of the Denton library: Emily Fowler, North Branch, and South Branch. It is one of our greatest honors to have a spot in the Local Authors section of the library. A dream come true! You can borrow 'THE FOX WHO BECAME A GIRL' for free in print at every Denton library. Enjoy!

We got a new day job *FINALLY* over the course of August 2025 after eight months of frequent job-hunting! It was a dream come true. One of our dear friends we know through the artist vendor community of Denton sent me through DM on Instagram a forwarded Story post from Thistle Creative Reuse (Secondhand art and craft supplies shop) announcing a job opening. I immediately responded and got an initial screening interview virtually, succeeded, got an in-person interview the next week, and was immediately hired later that day!! I started August 23rd and it has been AMAZING. I LOVE the environment that is autistic and queer friendly, so I don't have to hide any aspects of myself, those parts of myself are in fact celebrated where we have pride flags out year-round, sell pride merch tied with our branding, and the box for our in-store decorations labeled "PRIDE" is THE biggest box in storage out of every seasonal holiday. I consider my position here very lucky to hold onto and I cherish the opportunity to work here as a retail specialist.

Continuing onwards with The Denton Maker Center, we had a bonding event for the educators of DMC to meet up and talk and eat and enjoy each other's presence. We appreciate the Denton Maker Center so much as a place that provides a location to host workshops, seminars, talks, free events and more!

We remain committed to the work to help create opportunities for creativity in Denton that DMC staff and volunteers does.

Find our workshops at www.dentonmakercenter.com

We traveled all the way to Austin, TX for the first time on Amtrak Train systems! It was such a delightful trip and we stayed with our dear friend and their partner in their apartment. In Austin we attended the 9th year of the two-day zine festival titled Lone Star Zine Fest October 10th - 11th at Blue Genie Art Bazaar. It was a grand event and I met many great artists and got to support at least half of the event before time ran out and we all packed up to go home for the weekend. I also got my mom a beautiful cookbook from the first day of the event, and it was a cherished gift later in the year.

As we arrived back to Denton on the 13th, the Denton Halloween events were well-underway and we were planning on joining along too.

Late in the month I led multiple workshops, one being a GOTH ZINE NIGHT which was our most successful Halloween themed event. It was a 101 zine education workshop on top of being a sub-cultural educational moment with the free zines distributed on the history of goth by me.

We had a blast and loved seeing what everyone created!

The Denton Clowns event took place at the Denton Square and it was SO amazing! We loved it so much. Join us at the next Denton Clowns event and get silly with everyone!

The events are run by our friend Dr. Jeanette Laredo! She is a fantastic person and brings so much joy to Denton, TX.

See you at the next clown event! HONK!

We hosted a Make-and-Take Zine Bar at Thistle Creative Reuse on the Winter solstice of 2025. It was a delightful time and we had a little girl excitedly make an entire zine about cats! Another duo of great folks made fun zines too with their skills that came out beautiful. We also debuted some premade blank zine packs with different color themes to the sets which received good interest. We plan to do more Zine Bar events soon and really perfect the event in how we manage the organization of it. It was a GREAT first time for the concept!

As January hit and the ICE occupation and violent onslaught against Minneapolis took place, news soon arrived that Denton's police would be working with ICE officials and could make immigration arrests. Feeling daunted by all of this horrific news and real things impacting my neighbors and my friends I took my rage out on a new poster that denounced ICE, Nazis and fascists in Denton warning them to leave. We distributed these as an effort of our zine and art distro and every single small business we visited to donate one was grateful for it. We are happy to contribute to the fight for a better world. We love you, and we can keep going together.