Workshop for Independent Publishing Builds Community and Continuity

Print media has long been a powerful tool in the LGBTQ+ community — an accessible, tactile means of transcending time and space to share art, poetry, politics and resources. Independent publishing serves as a tangible record of queer existence, just like the magazine you’re reading right now. While digital media may dominate, print is far from obsolete. It remains a vital force for connection, resistance and creativity.

The Workshop for Independent Publishing, or WIP, is a community print shop and hub for local creatives, offering low-cost printing. WIP offers access to photocopiers, risograph machines and educational programming to support the creation of queer print media and homegrown publications. But beyond equipment, WIP offers something deeper: continuity in a long-standing tradition of queer and trans self-publishing.

WIP’s beginnings are humble. The project grew out of the living room of India Johnson and Aiden Bettine, zinesters and co-founders of Late Night Copies Press, a Minneapolis-based micro press focused on queer and trans publishing. After earning graduate degrees in Iowa City — Johnson in Book Arts and Technologies (MSA) and Bettine in library and archival science (MLIS, Ph.D.) — the couple moved to Minneapolis and began to build community through sharing the tools they had gathered through their press.

Bettine, now the curator of the Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies at the University of Minnesota, has dedicated his career to preserving and documenting queer archives. Johnson is a full-time teaching artist. Together, they turned their second-floor South Minneapolis apartment into a makeshift print studio, their dining room cramped with bulky photocopiers.

“We started sharing access to our photocopiers and our workspace,” Bettine recalls. “Which was really just our dining room turned print shop.”

Initially, they launched “Open Copy” events — casual drop-in Saturdays where people could come to make zines, flyers and creative prints affordably. The response was immediate and overwhelming. By 2024, they were producing more than 16,000 copies a month from their home.

That demand catalyzed something bigger. In early 2025, Bettine and Johnson opened WIP as an official storefront, moving operations into a shared space inside Yarborough Printshop. Though the storefront has only been open for a few months, it has already become a cornerstone for queer and trans creatives in the Twin Cities.

The new space has allowed WIP to grow: more hours, more equipment and more skill sharing, staffed by a dedicated team of 15 volunteer shopkeepers. It’s a place where access meets intention.

WIP is also in the process of building its own zine library. WIP offers two free copies of each work — one for the archive and one for the public collection. In just three months, the library has collected over fifty zines, preserving and showcasing the vibrancy of queer print culture in real time.

In collaboration with the Tretter Collection and Astringent Press, Late Night Copies runs the Midwest Queer and Trans Zine Fest. Johnson and Bettine are pushing regional representation to the forefront. The festival features an equal split between Twin Cities-based zines and those from across the greater Midwest.

“We want to pair the legacy of Midwestern print with the contemporary landscape of Midwestern print culture,” Bettine says.

Late Night Copies travels nationwide to table at zine fests, challenging the myth that queer and trans culture only exists on the coasts. Their work highlights the Midwest as a thriving, vibrant hub of queer creativity and builds bridges between regional creators.

Ultimately, their goal is to create a space that celebrates and sustains queer and trans creatives.

“We want to foster a community that enables people to collect queer print, have another distribution point and afford encouragement,” Bettine says. “There are a lot of people who make zines because they went to a zine fest and they found a zine that inspires them. We all inspire each other.”

That being said, WIP is not exclusively for zines and creative projects.

“Fliers, prints, mailers, we got you!” Bettine insists.

The Workshop for Independent Publishing is more than a print shop — it’s a community-building project grounded in care, access and legacy. Through Late Night Copies and WIP, Bettine and Johnson are carrying forward a powerful publishing tradition, solidifying queer and trans history in print.