The Frances Forum

It started as a joke.

I was a 19 year old undergrad, recently dumped. The villain who bruised my heart was an indie musician from Athens, Georgia. Our time together was a great adventure—and every parent’s nightmare. Despite skipping classes to join him on the road, I still made the Dean’s List! Among our many topics of discussion: the contrast between who he and his band were versus the image manufactured by their record label’s marketing machine. Quite an education.

Eventually he returned to his life in Georgia and I resumed mine as an Indianapolis coed. I forgot I was still a member of his fan club until the fateful day I checked my mail only to be greeted by the latest issue of his band’s newsletter. Splashed across the cover was news of his recent wedding (to the woman he dated right before me) and a billboard-sized photo of the happy bride and groom.

I stamped my size 6 Doc Martens and decided I, too, deserved the accolades of millions. So I started my own fan club with a newsletter devoted to documenting my every move. Applying lessons learned from my ex-BF, I wrote stories about my life in third person, as if by a determined team of hyperactive celebrity journalists.

I shared the first issue with the Georgia musician (he loved it!). Encouraged by friends and faculty, I continued to write my zine, The Frances Forum, for 11 years, 30 issues total. I may not have known it then but, looking back, I was surely a 90s riot grrrrl.

The newsletter was important to my development as an artist and helped launched my professional writing career. Indianapolis Monthly magazine first featured me in their glossy pages, and later hired me as a contributing editor.