What this is
A monthly DIY zine
Hutchkins University is a monthly DIY zine out of Denver. Every month we print and distribute a calendar of all the cool shit in the city. Classes, museum days, bike rides, skill shares, rad as shit backyard shows, plus a directory of third spaces. All of it nonprofit, DIY, or local. No $20 cocktails or bullshit corporate sponsored events.
We call ourselves a "university" because we're reclaiming what learning can be. Learning happens in community, not in a stuffy classroom. The whole city is the classroom, and just by reading this you're already a student if you want to be.
Denver is already full of amazing events put on by incredible organizers. We aren't reinventing the wheel here. Our goal is to connect and uplift the work that's already happening, to build community. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Hang the calendar on your fridge and stop scrolling Instagram for hours finding cool stuff to do. We pull together the good stuff so you don't have to wade through AI spam and get dragged into doom scrolling.
Community happens through repeated exposure. The more we get this zine out, the more people keep running into each other at the same events, and the stronger that gets.
Given how fucked the whole world feels these days, we need to build genuine community more than ever. All we have is each other. At the end of the day, if one person gets a flat tire and has a new person in their phone they can call to come help, this whole effort is a success. Get off your phone, go check out some events and connect with rad people, ya dingus.
Inside
A past edition
An example of a past edition, so you can get a sense of what you'd get in the mail.
Get involved
We want to grow
The vision is printing these at high volume, as a staple of community in Denver that people can rely on and contribute to, in ways that build mutual aid for everyone involved.
- Finding eventsWe want people plugged into the Denver scene to help fill the calendar with stuff you wouldn't find anywhere else.
- Folding & collatingWe'll have folding parties before long and we'll let you know. Come help us get the volume up and make some friends doing it.
- DistributionDrop stacks at third spaces, or haul one to a show.
We also want monthly release parties with live bands. Same idea: seeing the same faces over and over is what builds a real, grounded community. Not just a one-off event.
And we don't just want to list events, we want to make them. Want to host something? We'll help. You don't need to be an organizer, you just need the idea.
Are you involved with, or know of, a cool third space or an organization doing good work? Let us know and we'll include them in the next edition.
This is for getting involved. Events, third spaces, volunteering, ideas. It isn't subscription support — that's all self-serve in your account.
Get it in the mail
Subscribe
This isn't an online version of the zine. There isn't one. People keep asking how to get a copy, and mailing them is the easiest way to manage that.
We put copies up at a bunch of third spaces around town. But if you'd rather have one delivered on time each month, subscribing is the option for you.
Pay what you can. We took this straight from Same Cafe, who have been feeding Denver on donations for years, and who we love. $5 is the floor, not the price. It's about what postage and printing actually cost us. If you've got more and you reckon it's worth it, put in more — that's what pays for the stacks we leave around town for people who can't.
We only ship along the Front Range
Fort Collins down to Colorado Springs. Shipping further costs more than the zine brings in, and this is a hyper local publication. There's no point having a calendar of Denver events if you can't get to any of them. We keep it local on purpose.
When it shows up
We're balancing getting it out on time against waiting long enough to hear about the best shit. Ideally you'll get it in the mail right before the 1st of the new month.
We go to the post office once a month, on the 26th. Subscribe before then and you're in that run. After that you're waiting for the next one.
There's no customer service
We're a tiny crew. We can't run a help desk, so Stripe handles all of it. When you subscribe you get an account where you can cancel, change your address or update your card yourself, any time, without asking us.
Email and text us about events, third spaces, volunteering, any of it. But we can't answer subscription questions, so use your account for those.
The internet is a dumpster fire
We worked hard to make this not suck ass. No phone number, we don't need it. Cancel immediately, no survey asking why. No Amazon Pay, and no Klarna or any of that predatory buy now, pay later shit. Nobody should go into debt over a zine.
All of that was the default. We had to dig deep in the menus to turn that shit off, because the tech scumlords want to suck us dry like the vampires they are.
If you can't afford it, just ask. Email us and we'll send you a code that covers the whole thing. We hand those out to volunteers too. Nobody misses an issue over five bucks.
Tell us if we can do better.
Full disclosure
Yes, we used AI to build this site
Before anyone freaks out. I know, it's fucking stupid. Here's our reasoning.
We want to be in community, not in front of a screen. We didn't want a 3rd party app taking a percentage of every subscription, and this way we could do it ourselves with no outside help.
A proper site built by a real developer would take time and money, and we are scrappy as fuck. This is all an effort to give us time to work on the zine, not to become online retail developers.
We all make compromises living under capitalism. We thought about having people mail us cash and pre-addressed envelopes instead of letting Visa take a cut, but that would make it way harder to actually get zines out the door — which is the real goal. To build community in real life.
If you hate us now, that's fair. Fuck you too.
Hopefully you appreciate the transparency. If not, you do you.
If you're a developer who wants to volunteer to manage this, reach out. Thanks!