About

Forge Zine was established in May 2019 when our team was nearing the end of our university careers. We wished to continue to attend literary and arts activities, festivals and events with the frequency we did at university. This, paired with the desire to publish creative work on a small scale, inspired Forge Zine to be born. We publish editions quarterly on the Solstices and Equinoxes. We are an inclusive zine and we love when creatives challenge our publishing skills by sending us weird and wonderful submissions.

Some of our earlier efforts are available to read free at Issuu.com/ForgeZine.

In 2021, we began organising live shows featuring a variety of local talent, with performers and entertainers from York and beyond! Yorkshire Day: Night of Arts was our debut event and we thoroughly enjoyed the process of preparing and hosting it. See our Events Page for more information on our upcoming projects. 

Meet the Team

E. Hartley Smith

Elle is a York St John University BA Graduate in Creative Writing and current MA student in Publishing. She is the Chief Editor and Founder of Forge Zine, she has recenlty loved the challenges brought to her by Forge Zine's new adventures into Events. She is a low key adrenaline junkie and lover of the sea side and all things fire and water related. Lived in Amsterdam for a while and cannot wait to go back and keep exploring this beautiful world we live on.

Paul Whelan

Paul Whelan is a poet and publisher from Sheffield, and a reader for Forge Zine. He has co-edited and assisted with the publication of numerous Forge Zine issues, as well as performing his poems live at our Night of Arts events. Having studied Creative Writing and Publishing in York and London, he is back in the People's Republic of South Yorkshire, where he sometimes writes. He also runs Acid Bath Publishing, an independent small press founded in 2020.

James Rance

James is a York-based poet, collage artist and performer. He works as part of the Forge Zine team to help bring you nights of live performance and music as well as our quarterly Zines. He moved to York in 2016 to study at York St. John University, and was so inspired by this wonderful, historical city that he never wanted to leave. While he has not been able to perform much during the pandemic, he has been focusing on creating work in preparation for the return of live poetry nights.

James’ work is inspired by surrealism, weird dreams, Pagan rituals, psychedelia and the slightly absurd. His passion for performance comes from a background in theatre and live poetry, and his spoken-word poetry aims to push boundaries and freak the audience out. He can’t wait to get up to weird antics in front of an audience once again!