It can be daunting to take the plunge, but once you've strutted the boardwalk in a figure flattering tail, you'll share our conviction that the absolute best way to experience the Coney Island Mermaid Parade is as a participant.

Veteran Mermaid Ayun Halliday, author of the Zinester's Guide to NYC, will guide you through the entire process, from designing your costume and lining up your crew, to parade day survival tips and beyond!

Topics to be covered include:

• Overcoming shyness to flaunt whatever it is that you've got!
• Determining your theme
• Pulling together a great low budget costume from thrift shops, 99cent stores, craft supplies, and more
• Determining who will make a good crew member
• Maintaining visual cohesion
• How to join an existing group
• Registration and other red tape
• Transportation
• Your parade day survival kit
• Interacting with photographers both amateur and pro
• Bribing the judges
• Staying on the right side of the law
• Cultivating a winning mer-sonality
• Bathroom strategies
• Meeting up with friends when nobody's got cell reception
• Reliving the glory in cyberspace (or making the paparazzi work for you!)

Working together, we'll tackle any costume dilemmas you may be having, share likely supply sources, and make sure that everyone walks with a custom-sized pattern for Mermaid Ayunee's Super-Cinchy Comfort Tail, guaranteed to flatter mermaids of all shapes & sizes.

Note: The Coney Island Mermaid Parade takes place Saturday June 18, rain or shine. Spend one hour with Ayun, and you will be ready!

Ayun Halliday is the Chief Primatologist of the long running East Village Inky zine, and the author of six books, including No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late and The Zinester's Guide to NYC.

Having overcome a shy Indiana childhood, Ayun now embraces the Coney Island Mermaid Parade as one of her High Holy Days. Her love of spectacle and dressing up can be traced to her Northwestern theater degree, a decade-long stint with the NeoFuturists, and a semi-disastrous day job in a Chicago costume warehouse.

In nearly a decade of Mermaid Parade participation, her crews have racked up an impressive seven awards, including a marlin-topped Best Little Neptune trophy, but that's not why she does it. That's just something to shoehorn into the ol' bio so you'll take this class! The real reward is the chance to sidestep the everyday, hang out with friends, freaks and/or fellow New Yorkers, drinking in an ocean's worth of creative ingenuity.

Ayun's mermaid costumes are a tribute to the theatrical properties of papier mache, cheap umbrellas, toy swords, granny carts, ripped dishtowels, the lingerie department at Conway, a well stocked rag bag, and a willingness to ham it up.

Like many land-dwelling mermaids, Ayun lives in Brooklyn, in a very small apartment that she shares with her husband, the playwright Greg Kotis, and their two extremely well-documented children.

Dare to be Heinie!