The mission of Richard Hugo House is to build a vital learning community that develops and sustains practicing writers doing essential work. It is a place that nurtures writers, readers and audiences of books, plays, films, and brings innovative and effective writing education to people of all ages and backgrounds.

The Richard Hugo House's Zine Archive & Publishing Project exists to validate independent publications (extant and defunct, past and present), to promote the perpetuation of the art form, and to champion freedom of speech and creative cultural evolution. Located downstairs in the Hugo House basement ZAPP collects zines, comics, chapbooks, pamphlets, journals, gazettes, city papers, fan 'zines, art mags, monographs, short anthologies, personal transmissions, and other not-so-easily classified independent publications for preservation and display.