Microcosm Publishing

An Urban Field Guide to the Plants, Trees, and Herbs in Your Path

Befriend the plants in your neighborhood.

Imagine going for a walk with a knowledgeable friend who points out all the plants you see and the coolest facts about them. This practical field guide is that friend, providing a delightful introduction to 58 of the plants, trees, weeds, and herbs you’ll encounter walking around most US cities. Accurate, charming line drawings accompany detailed yet accessible botanical information about each plant that helps you easily identify it in all seasons. You’ll also learn each plant's backstory, including its relatives, origins, historical uses, and other fun facts. Getting to know the plants you meet every day will help you strengthen your sense of place, improve your foraging game, make new botanical and herbal friends, and marvel at the life that is all around us.

Trans-Galactic Bike Ride: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories of Transgender and Nonbinary Adventurers

2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist 

Take a ride with us as we explore a future where trans and nonbinary people are the heroes. In worlds where bicycle rides bring luck, a minotaur needs a bicycle, and werewolves stalk the post-apocalyptic landscape, nobody has time to question gender. Whatever your identity you'll enjoy these stories that are both thought-provoking and fun adventures. Find out what the future could look like if we stopped putting people into boxes and instead empowered each other to reach for the stars.

Featuring original stories from Hugo, Nebula, and Lambda Literary Award-winning author Charlie Jane Anders, Elly Bangs, Kiera Jessica Bane, Ava Kelly, Juliet Kemp, Rafi Kleiman, Tucker Lieberman, Nathan Alling Long, Ether Nepenthes, Lane Fox Marcus Woodman, and Nebula-nominated M. Darusha Wehm, and an introduction to the new edition by Microcosm publisher Joe Biel. 

Our Sacred Cycle: A Workbook to Reclaim Your Period from PMS and PMDD

Learn to manage your PMS and PMDD

Your period doesn't have to ruin your life. 

Sometimes our menstrual symptoms prevent us from showing up the way we want to, and there is not a lot of information about how to feel better. You may have had trouble finding resources that explain what's happening in your body and mind. You may have even been disbelieved or blamed.

Our Sacred Cycle was created to help. Written by a therapist who specializes in premenstrual syndrome (PMS), premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), and other forms of hormone imbalance, this workbook offers accessible information and reflective exercises to help you understand the physiology of the menstrual cycle and how it affects you, harness your power, and live in harmony with your body. Whether you want to heal from patriarchal trauma or connect with yourself in a new way, this is the empowering, feminist resource you need to reclaim your cycle, take control of your symptoms, and achieve a transformative mind-body connection. You can feel better!

$25 Superpack: Care & Action Package

Freaked out about the election results? Cry it out, then step into your power.

You have validity, meaning, and purpose in your own life and in the world. These books are chosen to help turn the inner rage into outward action. Together, we’ve got this.

Includes:

• Direct Action Handbook: A Guide to Organizing & Protesting Safely
• From Conflict to Community: Transforming Conflicts Without Authorities
• Surviving: Getting Through the Shit Life Throws at You
• The Courage Party: Helping Our Resilient Children Understand and Survive Sexual Assault
• How to Get Your Period: A Guide to Performing Menstrual Extraction
• Hot Pants: Do It Yourself Gynecology
• Unfuck Your Anger: Using Science to Understand Frustration, Rage, and Forgiveness

Can't quite swing the full price right now, or want to get multiple bundles for you and someone else that might need one?  Use coupon code CARE10, CARE15, or CARE20, to get 10%,15%, or 20% (respectively) off your order.

The Essential Dr. Faith: Using Science to Boost Your Brain, Body, Intimacy, and Boundaries

If you're like most of us, there's more than one aspect of your life that could use some unfucking. More often than not, the challenges of mental health, physical health, boundaries, sex, and relationships are tied together in a big, overwhelming tangle. And when it comes to sorting ourselves out, it's hard to know where to begin.

But take heart: this comprehensive resource from bestselling author Dr. Faith G. Harper makes that process a whole lot easier. Combining the tools and insights from four of her most essential titles—Unfuck Your Brain, Unfuck Your Body, Unfuck Your Intimacy, and Unfuck Your Boundaries—this omnibus empowers you to tackle all parts of your life on your way to becoming your best self. If you're new to Dr. Faith's work, this is the perfect introduction to her accessible, funny, science-based approach to getting your act together.

This Is Your Bike on Plants: Fantastical Feminist Stories of Bicycling, Gardens, and Growth

When you plant the seeds of bicycle revolution, you never know what the future will grow. These 12 stories form a splendid garden of potential futures, from the speculative to the surreal—all powered by bicycles, grounded in feminism, and blossoming with creativity.

In these pages you’ll find activist trees, magical flowers, feminist fairy tales, climate parables, photosynthesizing human-bicycle cyborgs, revolutionary elves, dazzling space gardens, green witchcraft, and more to delight your imagination. Lovers of cli-fi, solarpunk, hopepunk, and feminist bicycle science fiction will all find something to love here. You’ll never see the streets, or plants, around you the same way again.

Featuring stories by Kathryn Reilly, Marta Pelrine-Bacon, Cass Wilkinson Saldaña, Amanda McNeil, Ella P. Francis, Lisa Timpf, Bee Toothman, Kelley Tai, Jennifer Lee Rossman, J.D. Harlock, Kathryn Reese, and Joe Biel.

Missed the Kickstarter? Check out the PledgeManager for all the rewards and extras!

A People's Guide to Houseplants: Thrifty, Sustainable Ways to Fill Your Home with Plants

Want to fill your home with lush greenery? You can do it without breaking the bank or your back. Cara Brezina shares her love of plants and offers advice on how to choose, nurture, and not kill the houseplants in your life—all without spending a bunch of money. With the help of clear illustrations and straightforward instructions, learn to find free or affordable plants and herbs; propagate from cuttings, roots, and your dinner scraps; create dazzling displays, cactus gardens, and terrariums on a budget; find sustainable planting materials; and fertilize your plants without spending big. Discover the joy of experimentation and seeing what you can make grow. No matter where you live, how broke you are, or how hectic your life is, you can turn your home into a green oasis and make lasting friends with your houseplants.

Books That Should Never Exist: A Coloring Book of the Best Worst Book Ideas Ever

Everyday Vampirism. 

Gross-out Popsicles. 

Erotic Christmas Tree Decorating. 

Vice Presidential Fashion Advice. 

Never Pay a Dentist Again! 

These books are so bad they’re brilliant—and they’ll never exist (we hope), except in these fully developed, engagingly detailed, laugh-out-loud coloring pages. Here you’ll find board books for babies seeking government and regulatory jobs, large-print guides to unwise retirement strategies, ill-advised memoirs, and unlikely beach reads. It’s the perfect collection of gifts not to get the whole family, but as a gift for yourself, it’s bound to bring joy.

Make It Last: Sustainably and Affordably Preserving What We Love

Fix it, ferment it, and make it fit—don't throw it out! Save money and live more sustainably with this illustrated and hand-written guide to extending the life of your clothes, good, and household items. Darn your socks, pickle your surplus of garden produce, repair your kitchen sink, and so much more. Sustainability and endangered basic life skills go hand in hand in this charming resource. Raleigh Briggs, author of the bestselling Make Your Place, brings an encouraging patience and can-do attitude that shine through the pages. The perfect gift for a teen or new graduate, or resource for an established adult looking to consume less and keep the things they love around for years to come. 

Houseplants & How to Grow Them

This guide to growing your own houseplants and decorating your living space touches on popular plants and the simplest and most effective ways to nurture them. Author Parker T. Barnes writes effusively about how the sight of houseplants fills him with joy, and ebulliently shares deep knowledge about Dutch bulbs and Cape bulbs and the lighting and moisture conditions to cultivate them and offers sage advice on everything from how to construct planters, to maintaining a healthy temperature, to reviving ailing plants. Originally published in 1909, Barnes' little book is comprehensive and friendly. Readers will enjoy the classic style of the writing, as well as the timeless quality of the suggestions Barnes makes for turning your home into a verdant paradise.

Disabled Witchcraft: 90 Rituals for Limited-Spoon Practitioners

Accessible, inclusive, anti-capitalist magick

Magick is all around us and should be for everyone. But the practices in many witchcraft books can be difficult for many of us to perform due to chronic illnesses, sensory issues, allergies, or other disabilities—and the financial limitations that often go hand in hand with them.

In this guide, disabled witch Kandi Zeller sets out to change that. Through 90 inclusive (and sometimes spicy) magickal rituals designed for witches with disabilities of all kinds—especially the invisible ones—Disabled Witchcraft lays out a truly accessible magickal practice with a solid dose of humor and heart. If your spoons (aka available energy and executive function) are limited on any given day, that doesn't need to be a hindrance to following your spiritual path. From guidance on using crystals for nervous-system regulation to tarot readings for spoonies to laying a curse upon unjust health systems, you'll find practical tools to harness the magick of your disabilities, fight both ableism and capitalism, and embrace a more expansive version of the path.

Cooking with Magic Mushrooms: The Psilocybin Cookbook

Head to the kitchen to make your next psilocybin experience unforgettable

Magic mushrooms offer so many marvels, from transformative healing to excitement. One thing they are not known for is flavor. David Connell’s quest to make psilocybin palatable led him to develop recipes that integrate small, measured quantities of shrooms into tasty food and drink.

Stop gnawing on bitter, fibrous stalks and begin your journey with a calming, pleasant snack or sip. These healthy, delicious recipes are lactose-free, with gluten-free substitutions throughout, and have no added sugars. Photographs and illustrations will inspire your explorations of food, fungi, and consciousness.

Thornapple Press to be distributed by Microcosm Publishing

Meet our latest distributed publisher

Starting April 1, 2025, Microcosm Publishing will become the new worldwide distributor (excluding Canada) for Thornapple Press, a Canadian publisher specializing in thoughtful titles about love, sexuality, and relational ethics with integrity. Publisher Eve Rickert founded Thornapple as the successor to Thorntree Press, publisher of popular and award-winning polyamory- and relationship-based books such as Polysecure, More Than Two, and Love’s Not Color Blind.

Microcosm founder and CEO, Joe Biel, says of the new agreement, "I've found Thornapple to have an excellent point of view, good publication packaging and design, and thoughtful ideas throughout their existence, so when they approached us to become their distributor, the answer was obvious. Independent presses are stronger together and it's clear that this tide lifts all boats." 

Rickert adds, "The new arrangement offers a lot of benefits for Thornapple, our books and our authors. Microcosm has a large sales staff throughout the USA, with excellent reach into specialty shops, such as sex shops, that are well-suited for our books. Microcosm is also closely aligned with Thornapple in terms of both brand identity and company culture."

Microcosm will distribute Thornapple’s full backlist as well as all forthcoming titles, such as Transforming the Shame Triangle: From Shame to Love Using Parts Work by bestselling authors Jessica Fern and David Cooley, scheduled for release in 2025. While Microcosm has always sold Thornapple Press’s catalog, Thornapple titles will be exclusive through Microcosm starting in April 2025.

Excited? Us too! Exclusive distro rights begin in the new year, but you can still browse the Thornapple titles currently available on our site, with more to come!

Microcosm's 2024 Gift Guide

Make change, do good, spread some light

It's been A Year (TM). Don't know about y'all, but we're tired—and at the same time, extremely motivated to make change, do good, and spread some light. 'Tis the season, you know? So for this year's gift guide, our theme is in keeping with the times. A lot of you are shopping for the movers, shakers, and helpers in your lives, and we have a few suggestions to help get you started (or you can just get yourself something nice).

? If you want to make sure your items arrive in time for the holidays, be sure to place your order by December 6th! ?

To save a little money, use coupon GIFTGUIDE15 to get 15% off your order at checkout through December 7th!

So let's get into it:

• The One Working on Their Own Healing
• The One Casting a Spell to Make the World a Better Place
• The One Planning Ahead
• The One Creating a Way Through
• The One Starting an Underground Healthcare Collective
• The One Gardening, Preserving, and Doing it Themself
• The One Unionizing Their Workplace
• The One Learning from the Past
• The One Who Knows Queer Joy is an Act of Resistance
• The One You Don't Know How to Shop For

The One Working on Their Own Healing

Sometimes you find inspiration in the most unlikely of places. Like, did you know guinea pigs—yes, the adorable little squeaky guys—are true adversaries of capitalism?

• What Guinea Pigs Can Teach Us About Life: How Sleeping Piggies Show Rest as Resistance and Yawning as Care by Virginia Cafaro
  Capitalism is a bummer. We’re told that our value lies solely in our work, and “grind culture” has become the norm. However, there is one shining beacon of resistance in our capitalist hellscape: guinea pigs. Virginia Cafaro has learned to see her guinea pigs as not only role models, but true adversaries to the capitalist regime. Follow along with Virginia, Pamela, Andersen, and Brisetti as they delve into the need for rest, community, communication, and self-care.
  
• Unfuck Your Anger: Using Science to Understand Frustration, Rage, and Forgiveness by Dr. Faith G. Harper
  If you've ever been so pissed off that you did things that you regretted, this book is for you. Or if you feel angry every day and it's affecting your health. Or if you've got very good reasons to be mad as hell, and you aren't going to take it anymore. Or if you've repressed your anger all your life and now it's all coming out at once. Microcosm Publishing bestseller Dr Faith explains here what the hell is going on in your brain and how to retrain yourself to deal with enraging situations more productively and without torpedoing your relationships.
  
• How to Get Off Social Media and Still Keep In Touch With Your Friends by Sylvia Friday
  This little zine is part personal reflection on the merits of unplugging and part instruction manual for successfully extricating yourself from the ever-more-nightmarish world of social media. Author Sylvia Friday reflects on the uses of social media, and offers a critique of the ways that social media (especially for artists) has reduced art to a vacuous process of the capitalist cult of productivity. Friday calls for us to embrace snail mail and the beauty of ink and paper as a way to slow down, be creative in new and different ways, and engage more meaningfully with our loved ones.
  
• How to Feel Better: A Beginner's Guide to Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Well Being by School of Life Design
  An intensive, weeklong attunement course—in zine form—designed to help you access your personal power and the energetic resources around you to live a more engaged, authentic life. With charming images and a variety of supportive strategies for getting out of your head, into your body, and into your actual life one day at a time, this small but powerful resource will help you find everlasting satisfaction from the infinite source of well being within you.
  
• Self-Compassion: Be Kind to Yourself Instead of Striving for Bullshit by Dr. Faith G. Harper
  For decades, the U.S. has been obsessed with "self-esteem" or rather with our lack of it. How about self-compassion instead? Bestseller Dr. Faith explains the difference between the two and offers some helpful exercises in developing more compassion for yourself. It's actually very different, she explains, than letting yourself off the hook for your bullshit. It's more helpful to accept that you're human so that you can learn and grow rather than push aside your problems or wallow in your mistakes. Also, kindness to yourself helps you be more kind to other people as well. Everyone wins!

The One Casting a Spell to Make the World a Better Place

Build a better, more just, and much more climate-friendly world (while doing no harm and taking no shit) with Utopian Witch, Justine Norton-Kertson's solarpunk book of politically conscious spells and rituals. There's also a sticker and pin, if that's your jam.

• Utopian Witch: Solarpunk Magick to Fight Climate Change and Save the World by Justine Norton-Kertson
  Drawing on the natural connections between modern paganism and the literary, artistic, and activist movement known as solarpunk, this unique book of shadows provides meditations and correspondences for developing a spiritual practice rooted in nature, the Sun, and a powerful belief in our ability to build a better world. These politically conscious magickal practices (including spells to use in the fight against climate change, fascism, and inequality) forge a new spiritual praxis to guide us as we work together to envision and create the future we want to see.
  
• The Practical Witch's Almanac 2025: Rebel Wisdom by Friday Gladheart
  The essential core of witchcraft is wisdom and change. We've always been rebellious and defiant, and our own traditions are not exempt from challenge. Delve into iconic witchcraft traditions like the utterance of "blessed be" and the influential Wiccan Rede, exploring their origins and relevance today. This introspective journey isn't just about history; it's an empowering quest. It challenges you to assess these traditions' place in your craft. Embrace, adapt, or boldly defy these customs—this edition empowers you to shape your craft's evolution on your terms as you travel your unique spiritual path.
  
• You Are a Great and Powerful Wizard: Self-Care Magic for Modern Mortals by Sage Liskey and Barbara Counsil
  Contemporary life is confusing and it's easy to feel out of control. In this smart, secular witchcraft manual, Sage Liskey shows you how to get in touch with the mental, emotional, and physical aspects needed for spell casting. Chapters include guidance on finding your highest form, understanding your wizarding type, controlling your magic, overcoming roadblocks to your power such as depression and trauma, finding love or your ideal career, working with magical objects, facing a crisis, and community spell work. Once you've fully tapped into your magical powers, you can use them to effect positive change in yourself and those around you.
  
• Plants Against the Patriarchy by JP Hawthorne and Iris Mae Misciagna
  Descriptions of many species of plants and their applications, specifically in the way they help deal with our capitalist society's toxic masculinity-driven culture. It includes simple yet beautiful art from Iris Mae Misciagna for all the various plants. From Sunflowers to Lemon Balm, this zine is for ya'll looking for a fun read with some attitude or the medicinal remedy for those douche-bags down the street.

The One Planning Ahead

Let me tell you about the 2025 Slingshot organizer, for all your revolutionary needs. It's got all your usual planner-y things, calendars, memo pages, etc. But it also has info on police repression, a menstrual calendar, usual phrases in multiple languages like "freedom" and "mutual aid," a bunch of other things that have made it the go-to planner for organizers for years.

• Unfuck Your Year: A Weekly Unplanner and Self-Care Activity Book to Manage Your Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Triggers, and Freak-Outs by Dr. Faith G. Harper
  Take control of your life with this unplanner at any point in the year, and fill in the months and days as you plan your weeks and work through the exercises month by month. Unfuck Your Year is a perpetual planner with themed months to help you unfuck your life. Features weekly activities in Dr. Faith Harper's frank style to address a different topic each month, including anxiety, addiction, anger, depression and more. Also includes mood and period trackers, and space for you to set monthly goals along with plenty of achievable suggestions to get you on the right track.
  
• Beyond Manifestation: A 31-Day Guided Journal to Transform Your Life Through Emotional Awareness from School of Life Design
  Find contentment and discover profound freedom from stress and anxiety within this 31-day interactive workbook and planner. Reflect and ground yourself in the moment in these highly visual, calming pages. The School of Life Design, creators of Monthly Manifestation Manual and Monthly Magickal Record, show you that presence is key to attracting what you desire and finding true peace, love, and happiness. Embrace the infinite Now and see that life already is the way you want it to be. When you feel life is perfect, it has no choice but to show you evidence.
  
• Year of the Witch: A Planner and Spellbook for the Novice Witch by Francesca Black and Gregory Eales
  Magic is the ever-present energy around us, and it can be used to create and manifest the things we want in our lives. By living with our intentions and the moon’s guiding energy, we can align ourselves with this energy and live our best lives, creating our narratives and movement along the way. And with each step we take, we are closer to our authentic selves. If you're new to witchcraft, this guide will walk you through your first year, serving as an introductory guidebook, a planner, and a space to take notes and creatively expand your knowledge and build a practice.
  
• Tarot Through the Witch's Year: 33 Spreads for Spiritual Connection by Karen Krebser
  Explore the spiritual patterns of the Tarot with this collection of spreads based on the pagan Wheel of the Year. Readers, novice and proficient alike, are invited to dive headfirst into the spirituality involved in the witch’s year and to approach divine energy as it moves us and the Great Wheel around. The thirty-three spreads include layouts, images, diagrams, and sample readings for the four equinoxes and solstices, the four cross-quarter days, thirteen full moons, and twelve dark moons. See your year through new eyes, finding deeper meanings and a greater sense of connectedness.

The One Creating a Way Through

Make a Zine. They're banning books and restricting access to some really great resources, so make a zine instead. Zines are great ways to distribute ideas and art, plus you have the added bonus of the fact that "they" basically don't know zines exist.

• The Wayward Writer: Summon Your Power to Take Back Your Story, Liberate Yourself from Capitalism, and Publish Like a Superstar by Ariel Gore
  When your dream and creative passion is to write, how do you succeed without selling out or selling yourself short? Ariel Gore has spent her life solving this puzzle, writing and organizing her way towards a creative utopian vision, where storytelling is a form of resistance and writing is an outsider art. Through her own experiences and interviews with other authors, publishers, and agents, she shows you how to chart your own creative education, vanquish shame and imposter syndrome, cast off oppression, cast a spell on your readers, step into your unique powers, and build your own literary community where respect and honesty reign—and where you can be a writer and survive.
  
• From Chaos to Creativity: Building a Productivity System for Artists and Writers by Jessie L. Kwak
  With all the clutter overwhelming your scattered brain (not to mention your desk), it's all too easy to fall into procrastination and disarray. From Chaos to Creativity is a glowing beacon, drawing on Jessie L. Kwak's experience as a professional copywriter with a novel-writing habit, and from interviews with other authors, artists, musicians, and designers, to teach you how to focus on the good ideas, manage your project, make time in your life, and execute your passions to completion. Make great art by channeling your chaotic creative force into productive power and let the world see what you're capable of!
  
• Creative, Not Famous Activity Book: An Interactive Idea Generator for Small Potatoes & Others Who Want to Get Their Ayuss in Gear by Ayun Halliday
  Are you a small potato, pursuing your creative passions without expectations of fame or fortune? This playful workbook is designed to help adults with years of creative experience explore unconsidered art forms, amp up your creative approach, and wrangle your personal triumphs into a sustained and fulfilling practice. An exuberant, hilarious, and fun guide for anyone ready to subvert creative business and branding advice and realize a deeper relationship with their own uniquely weird and wonderful creativity.
  
• Smiling Disease: A Guide to Public Stickering by Scott Larkin
  Have you ever dreamed of plastering the city with stickers of your own design and annoying the crap out of squares? Here is a your chance: A complete guide to placing adhesive decorations in places where the general populace will see them. Everything from how to get the best stickers printed, to going undetected, some theory, stickering scruples, and dealing with the full psychological ramifications of having your stickers removed. Clear Channel posts their ads everywhere, why shouldn't you?

The One Starting an Underground Healthcare Collective

For the one on your list that is (rightfully) riled up and ready to fight, we have Get Your Laws Off My Uterus pack. The boxset combines some of our favorite resources on reproductive care, including Hot Pants, How to Get Your Period, Reclaiming Our Ancient Wisdom, and more. For those ahead of the game, we have the Ask Me About Menstrual Extraction sticker!

• Get Your Laws Off My Uterus Superpack
  Ever since reproductive choice was legalized in the US in 1973, factions have been trying to strip the right to safe, legal abortions by any means necessary. Lately, they're getting their way. Fuck that noise. We'll keep fighting back, armed with the lessons of history. Read up with these zines and books both about organizing and finding abortion access, and learning the medical procedures so we can make informed choices about what to do with our own bodies. And, of course, taking care of ourselves and each other. 
  
• How to Afford Your Damn Meds: A Burned-Out Nurse's Guide by Kenra Brewer, BSN, RN-BC
  Got a prescription you can't afford to fill? Ever had to choose between your medications and groceries? Have you scrimped on dosages in order to squeak through to the end of the month? Kenra's a registered nurse, and she's written this helpful, affirming guide to empower American patients by providing actionable steps to take in their quest to afford their meds in our dumpster fire of a healthcare system. Some of the steps are basic reminders of your own agency and advocacy; others are arcane systemic workarounds not widely known to the general public. 
  
• Sick: A Compilation Zine on Physical Illness edited by Ben Holtzman
  Sick collects peoples' experiences with illness in order to help establish a collective voice of those impacted within radical/left/DIY communities. The zine is meant to be a resource for those who are living with illness as well as those who have not directly experienced it themselves. Contributors discuss personal experiences and topics such as receiving support, providing support, and being an informed patient. These writings are meant to increase understandings of illness and further discussion as well as action towards building communities of care.
  
• Primitive Toothcare: A DIY Guide to Uncivilized Oral Hygiene by Rowan Gangulfr
  Fed up with stealing toothpaste and rubbing synthetic nylon all over his face, Rowan Gangulfr decided to explore alternative options for taking care of his teeth, gums, and mouth. He discovered that primitive tooth care was surprisingly easy and effective, and it gives one the sense of empowerment that comes with reclaiming control of one’s body and health. So, are you tired of industrial dentistry? Try the ancient and time-proven methods present within this zine.

The One Gardening, Preserving, and Doing it Themself

Got someone interested in sustainability and DIY? Make it Last has a brand new paperback edition that includes a new forward, info on soapmaking, and the classic tips on mending, preserving, and repair that have made the book a Microcosm classic.

• Make It Last: Sustainably and Affordably Preserving What We Love by Raleigh Briggs
  An illustrated guide to clothes and food and home. Briggs bridges the gap between life in a disposable culture and the basic skills needed to save money and live more sustainably. This book teaches you how to extend the lives of the things you love by repairing clothing, preserving home-grown food, and even repairing your kitchen sink and making your own soap. Briggs takes her longtime commitment to community building through the DIY movement and shares her valuable experience with the reader through a conversational tone in her hand-drawn and -illustrated guide.
  
• Homesweet Homegrown: How to Grow, Make, And Store Food, No Matter Where You Live by Robyn Jasko and Jennifer Biggs
  A simple DIY guide to growing, storing, and making your own food, no matter where you live, Jasko and Biggs' debut book will turn you into a healthy, happy farmer even if you live in a big city skyrise. Built around eight comprehensive sections (Know, Start, Grow, Plant, Plan, Make, Eat, and Store), this guide walks you through all the steps of successfully nurturing a crop of delicious, healthy vegetables. Everyone from the base beginner to the seasoned farmhand will find something for them in these pages.
  
• Fugitive Gardens by Claire Tuna
  Even if you live in a big, dirty city, you can grow your own lush herb and vegetable garden year-round. Claire walks you through the basics of fire escape gardening, like choosing containers, soil, landlords, pests, and making sure your fire escape can still be safely used in case of a fire. She offers a planting calendar tuned to New York City's climate and then offers detailed advice for growing tomatoes, herbs, peas, cucumbers, strawberries, and more. Finally she offers several blueprints and profiles of real-life NYC fire escape gardens. Evocative line drawings by Sheila Lin will help you envision your escape from mass-produced food networks!
  
• This Is Your Bike on Plants: Fantastical Feminist Stories of Bicycling, Gardens, and Growth edited by Elly Blue
  When you plant the seeds of bicycle revolution, you never know what the future will grow. These 12 stories form a splendid garden of potential futures, from the speculative to the surreal—all powered by bicycles, grounded in feminism, and blossoming with creativity. In these pages you’ll find activist trees, magical flowers, feminist fairy tales, climate parables, photosynthesizing human-bicycle cyborgs, revolutionary elves, dazzling space gardens, green witchcraft, and more to delight your imagination. You’ll never see the streets, or plants, around you the same way again.
  
• Bread of the Resistance: How to Make Sourdough Without Measuring by Tessalyn Morrison
  Build your own culture and resist! Tess Morrison walks you through how to make sourdough bread, as well as a few other recipes that use fermentation, in a straightforward, understanding, and measurement-free guide with wonderful, clear illustrations showing every step. In the process of making bread from scratch, with your own starter, your own hands, and your own time, you will find that making bread is not only an act of creation, but an act of resistance against consumer culture and a society that has devalued quality and tradition in favor of convenience.

The One Unionizing Their Workplace

A worker-owned co-op is the ultimate group project. Owning the Means of Production is a small but mighty zine full of tools to help you get a co-op up and running, based on the experiences of the Jefferson People's House in Duluth, Minnesota. You can also help your gift recipient show their support for co-ops or their Bartleby stance with stickers.

• Owning the Means of Production: Pocket Lessons for Your Own Worker Co-op! by Allen Killian-Moore
  Have you ever thought about founding and running a successful worker-owned co-op? It takes more than just getting together with some friends and agreeing to share the work and profits. A business—even a small, unconventional one—requires planning, structure, and good business sense. Based on the trials and tribulations of the Jefferson People's House in Duluth, Minnesota, this guide will provide you with the tools to help start your own co-op. 
  
• How to Resist Amazon and Why: The Fight for Local Economics, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future! by Danny Caine
  Danny Caine, former owner of Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas has been an outspoken critic of the seemingly unstoppable Goliath of the bookselling world: Amazon. Here he lays out the case for shifting our personal money and civic investment away from global corporate behemoths and to small, local, independent businesses. Well-researched and lively, his tale covers the history of big box stores, the big political drama of delivery, and the perils of warehouse work interspersed with charming personal anecdotes from bookstore life, making this a readable, fascinating, essential book for the 2020s.
  
• Punching Out: Solidarity on the Factory Floor by Martin Glaberman
  In 1952 Marty Glaberman was a Detroit autoworker who had participated in wildcat strikes and UAW union policing of the workforce. After witnessing a series of workers who were promoted to steward and become ineffective negotiators, Glaberman had a realization. He had been an autoworker since before unionization in 1937 but consistently watched promoted workers turn against their own as they were promoted. Why? The question that has been asked in every coal mine, worker shop, ship in port, steel mill, and auto plant was forever: was it selfish betrayal or bureaucracy that killed any prospects of solidarity in even the most active union worker?

The One Learning from the Past

People have been resisting, fighting, and creating throughout history. Firebrands will introduce you to activists and changemakers you probably didn't learn about in school (great for a history nerd, or someone looking for inspiration) while the CIA Makes Science Fiction Unexciting series is full of juicy revelations that may change someone's view on past and current events.

• Firebrands: Activists You Didn't Learn About in School edited by Shaun Slifer and Bec Young
  Instead of focusing on the powerful, rich white folks so often featured in textbooks, these gorgeous portraits with accompanying biographies recognize the work of grassroots organizers, revolutionaries, visionaries, anarchists, workers, and artists. These heroes put their bodies and souls into fighting injustice and making their communities better, and they often gave their lives for the causes they believed in. Each story is vividly illustrated by a member of Justseeds Artists' Cooperative and offers a radical glimpse into how individuals can work to change the world.
  
• Burning Rage of a Dying Planet: The FBI vs. the Earth Liberation Front by Craig Rosenbraugh
  Since 1997, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) has waged brazen property damage and arson attacks against entities they hold responsible for environmental destruction, including timber companies, ski resorts, and car dealerships. In this revised and updated new edition of Burning Rage of a Dying Planet, former ELF spokesperson Craig Rosebraugh charts the history and ideology of the ELF, as well as the repression strategies the government uses to destroy activist movements, in this illuminating insider account of the ongoing battle between radical environmentalists and the powers of the state.
  
• What the Ladies Have to Say: Voices of Women Activists in Palestine, Indonesia, and the Philippines
  Extensive interviews with female activists from the early 2000s, detailing the way that U.S. imperialism has personally affected them as well as destabilizing their countries. An incredible resource providing unique perspective and insight on international struggles for solidarity with women, prisoners and other oppressed populations.
  
• The Burning Lies: Witches, Radical Feminists, and Nazis by R.J. Gillis
  In recent times, advocates and feminists have come to the defense of witches and those accused of witchcraft, hoping to rectify the most egregious wrongs. Unfortunately, sometimes the facts get lost in the effort. In a 1984 essay—published in Trouble & Strife, a radical feminist magazine—titled “Enemies of God or Victims of Patriarchy?,” Lynette Mitchell writes: “I have read the most fantastically inflated statistics of witch-hunt victims in all sorts of feminist journals, magazines and books." This zine attempts to answer Mitchell’s implied question: How did we end up thinking that nine million women were executed as witches?

The One Who Knows Queer Joy Is an Act of Resistance

The rhetoric about trans folks, especially trans kids, is just plain horrible these days. I Love My Queer Kid is a lovely little light in the world, aiming to help caretakers or loved ones of queer kids help understand, support, and advocate for their kid. Help make the world a safer space for queer folks, especially youth.

• I Love My Queer Kid: A Workbook to Affirm and Support Your LGBTQ+ Child or Teen by Marc Campbell, LMHC
  
• This workbook is for parents and other caretakers whose child or young adult has come out as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, nonbinary, or any other queer identity. It includes nine weeks of accessible, thoughtful exercises designed to help you gain perspective, challenge your assumptions and fears, and better understand and connect with your kid. Drawing on his experience as a licensed mental health counselor working with queer youth and their families, Marc Campbell provides resources and real help for parents. The world may not always be kind to queer kids, but your home and family can be, and that makes all the difference.
  
• Gay Sailor Tattoos by R.J. Gillis
  It wasn't always a breeze to find lovers on the high seas, and we don't have many sources about sailors who desired their shipmates. But what we do have are tattoo designs—still recognizable in today's traditional tattooing styles—which sailors used to communicate their origins, status, and sexuality while on ship or shore. Gay Sailor Tattoos gives us a look into the lives of queer men, who, despite the dangers and difficulties of the sailing life, found freedom in their relationships and bodily expression. This thoughtful and well-researched zine brings together historical and visual details about the lives (lustful and otherwise) of sailors at the height of the seafaring profession, and their enduring cultural influence.
  
• The Transmasculine Guide to Physical Transition: For Trans, Nonbinary, and Other Masculine Folks by Sage Buch
  This in-depth exploration of all aspects of physical transition is an accessible and supportive guide for transgender men, transmasculine people, and nonbinary people. Drawing on their personal experience and extensive research, Sage Buch walks you through a wide array of safe transition options. Medical research and jargon is made accessible, side effects and pros and cons are clearly spelled out, and empowering perspectives help you consider what transition path is right for you.
  
• Boobs Not Bombs: Produce Your Own Transdermal Estrogen from the Fairy Wings Collective
  Treat your hormone needs safely and privately with the help of this guide to making and taking your own topical estrogen—no doctors, tests, or needles involved! In this zine, the fine folks at the Fairy Wings Collective share the trials and successes of their own experiments in pooling resources to create estrogen treatment that can be externally applied and absorbed through the skin. They walk you through the process for crafting and using transdermal estrogen, noting estimated expenses, secure communication practices, dosing protocols, and more. Seize the means of estrogen production with this informative, supportive, and community-minded approach to bodily autonomy!
  
• Next-Level Ally: How to Support Your Queer and Transgender Friends by Eli Sachse
  If you've ever felt like you're not doing enough to support the queer and trans communities, this zine is a great way to learn how to do more. Be a supportive advocate and speak up, even when it's hard, learn how not to overstep, and de-gender your day-to-day language.

The One You Don't Know How to Shop For

Whether they don’t like gifts or have read just about everything we have, you can always hook them up with a gift certificate, our BFF subscription, or even donate books to incarcerated folks in their honor.

Thanks for tuning in to this year's Microcosm Gift Guide! You can browse last year's, too, if you'd like. If you need other recommendations or have any questions, feel free to get in touch! Wishing you and your people a happy, hearty, and liberatory holiday season <3

Call for Submissions for Neurodiversity zine series

Events! Microcosm In Your Town

Want to meet us in person, check out our books, or see an author speak? We've got author events and convention events coming up!

Upcoming Author Events

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Upcoming Tabling Events

December 13–15, 2024 | Crafty Wonderland–Booth 253 | Oregon Convention Center—Portland, OR
Come visit the Microcosm team while we table at this much-beloved holiday market in PDX. Details for tickets below! More info.

Crafty Wonderland First Pick Pre-Show Party
Friday, December 13th from 5-9pm
$25 total - Includes one free drink of $15 value

General Admission - Timed Entry Every Hour
Saturday, December 14th from 10am-5pm
Sunday, December 15th from 10am-5pm
$4 total

Upcoming Trade Shows and Industry Events

Usually not open to the public, these industry events are a chance for store buyers to peruse our books, write orders, and chat about terms. We plan to either attend or exhibit at the following events. If you'll be there too, drop us a line—we'd love to meet you.

Interested in having an author at your store or event? Reach out!!

Planning an event and want us to be part of it (speaking, author readings, movie screenings, setting up a book and zine pop-up shop, etc.)? Let us know!!

In the Portland area? We can set up a book fair at your workplace like the ones your school used to have.

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Call For Submissions: Disability & Bikes in Space!

We are seeking speculative feminist fiction about disability and bicycles for the 14th anthology in the Bikes In Space series of books, guest edited by Jennifer Lee Rossman!

We want feminist stories about the intersection of bicycling and disability, in any speculative fiction genre. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, weird western… combinations of genres are also welcome! No poetry, erotica, fanfic, or gore for this series.

Stories must include intrinsic themes or elements of disability as well as bicycles (or tricycles, or other nonmotorized wheeled conveyance). We take a broad view of feminism, but avoiding unreflective sexist tropes is always a green flag, as is queering things up.

"Disability" here includes physical disabilities as well as cognitive and invisible, all flavors of neurodivergent, mental illness, chronic pain and fatigue, and any other conditions that you have experienced.

Authors do not need to disclose or "prove" their disabilities, but should identify as disabled. Non-disabled family, friends, and caregivers, we appreciate you but this is not the place for your stories.

We also welcome stories about and from people at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities.

Word count: 500-6000

Format: Word or PDF

Anonymous review: Submission review will be masked. Please put a working title for your story at the top of the document that matches the title in the submissions form. Do not include your name or contact info in the document itself. 

Submit stories via this google form: https://forms.gle/f1B8QUJ6Ajbq6JaP6

Submission deadline: March 1, 2025

Farewell to Joyce Brabner: Microcosm remembers a beloved author and mentor

Microcosm Publishing founder Joe Biel recently shared a remembrance of his close friend, mentor, respected comic artist and writer, and Cleveland publishing legend Joyce Brabner, who died August 2, 2024 after a long fight with cancer. She was 72 years old. 

Though Brabner is perhaps best known through her marriage to comics pioneer and American Splendor creator Harvey Pekar, she was herself an esteemed artist, activist, and writer, publishing numerous books of her own alongside collaborations with other graphic publishing luminaries such as Alan Moore, Denny O’Neil, and Stephen R. Bissette.

Brabner’s final published book was The Courage Party: Helping Our Resilient Children Understand and Survive Sexual Assault, a project of great importance to her which Microcosm published in 2020 at the very beginning of the COVID crisis. This groundbreaking YA comic book tells the story of a child who fights off a sexual attack (she prefers to be called a “crime fighter” over “survivor”) and the support she receives from her community, including an empowering “courage party” thrown for her by older women with their own stories to share. The book contains thorough and age-appropriate insights on how to navigate interactions with police, the legal system, support groups, and how to deal with teasing and inappropriate behavior from peers; it also offers extensive resources both for children and adults.

Detailed obituaries for Brabner have appeared in Cleveland Scene and Cleveland 13 News. Microcosm mourns the loss of Joyce Brabner as a friend, a Cleveland fixture, a fierce activist, and a publishing visionary.

Microcosm expands Cleveland warehousing operation

Microcosm Publishing has purchased the building adjacent to their Cleveland, OH warehouse, where construction is currently underway to connect the two buildings. This major project will double Microcosm’s warehousing capacity, as well as create an additional sales capacity of $5 million per year to serve the needs of Microcosm’s vertically-integrated publishing and distribution operation, which earned their recognition in 2022, 2023, and 2024 as a Publishers Weekly Fastest Growing Publisher.

Microcosm develops agile new systems for publishing and distribution programs

Microcosm Publishing has developed new internal buying, sales, and marketing systems for their publishing and distribution catalogs, tailoring their efforts across all departments to work more flexibly, efficiently, and more responsively to reader taste and customer demand.

With an eye toward seasonality as well as prioritizing curiosity and steady growth over quick trends, Microcosm’s new strategy will allow the press’s operations to focus on and more keenly track its strengths, such as titles on nature, the outdoors, and survival; mental health and neurodiversity; witchcraft, astrology, and metaphysics; mushrooms, gardening, wild foods, and more. Microcosm founder, publisher, and CEO Joe Biel explains, “We're adjusting our strategy to focus on subjects by month; essentially, we are treating all months like holidays to synchronize our sales, marketing, and purchasing departments, so the offerings are streamlined. This will allow us to accentuate the strength of our thematics and create a throughline from marketing to sales, and to manage the over 10,000 stores we added as customers over the past four years.”

Says Microcosm co-owner and vice president Elly Blue, “We've set aside publishing's cynical tendencies to chase bestsellers or churn out large quantities of dreck. Instead we're staying true to our values while serving the diverse needs and interests of our readers. We spent the past year running the numbers on what subject matter our customers want so we can give them more of that and evolve along with their interests, while building up our stable foundation to support our workers and mission. Want to go mushroom foraging by bicycle and then prepare a vegan feast? Start a co-operative coven consultancy? Get high, get sober, or get help turning your trauma into wisdom? We've got you."

Too Much Coffee Man to be distributed by Microcosm

Microcosm will be the new distributor for publisher Too Much Coffee Man, home of the iconic socially analytical humor comics and character created by Shannon Wheeler. Founded in 1991 and appearing everywhere from The New Yorker to The Daily Texan to MTV, Too Much Coffee Man remains an enduring and influential presence in independent comics. 

Microcosm’s collaboration with Too Much Coffee Man will include the forthcoming Too Much Coffee Man: The Original Comic Books #1-9, currently slated for release in March 2025, along with other reissues of prior releases and updated and new material. Stay tuned!

Microcosm becomes first independent publisher to join bookseller tech Batch

Microcosm Publishing has become the first U.S. independent publisher to sign on with Batch, a business tool owned by the Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland designed for independent bookstores to electronically store and organize invoices, reduce administrative workloads, and prepare publisher payments.

Microcosm hopes that this exciting and innovative development will strengthen relationships with independent booksellers, streamlining payment processes to create more ease and better communication for everyone. Booksellers and shop owners have already responded enthusiastically to the news from Microcosm's sales team, such as Kelly Justice of Fountain Bookstore, whose response to the news was, "GOD BLESS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry for the all-caps, but seriously, thank you."

Of the Batch partnership, Microcosm founder Joe Biel says, "When Allison Hill told every bookseller at Winter Institute to simplify their workloads by signing up for Batch, my next move was marching over and signing up as a publisher. Our field sales reps have always cited that the greatest impediment for opening new accounts to Microcosm is convincing stores to take on the payables workload of a self-distributed publisher. I know how much work goes into managing payments on our 242 accounts and how consolidating that workload will enable booksellers to add more cool, independent publishers. But it was shocking to learn that we were the first independent publisher in the U.S. to sign up!"

Batch is free for booksellers to join; stores interested in Batch services may sign up here. For bookstores interested in setting up accounts with Microcosm Publishing (which can be serviced by Batch's invoicing system), please feel free to contact us here.

Microcosm launches Yard Dragon Books imprint

Microcosm Publishing is founding a new imprint, Yard Dragon Books, focused on titles about plants and herbalism. Acquisitions for the imprint will be led by editor, herbalist, and artist Alexis Orgera. 

Orgera (she/they) is the author of the lyric memoir Head Case: My Father, Alzheimer’s & Other Brainstorms (Kore Press, 2021), as well as poetry books How Like Foreign Objects and Dust Jacket, and Agatha (forthcoming) from Jackleg Press. She holds degrees in British & American literature from New College of Florida (before New College was taken over by DeSantis and his goons) and poetry from Emerson College. Orgera is an editor, has taught college writing, co-founded and edited Penny Candy Books, and is was recently executive director of Greensboro Bound literary festival. A student and practitioner of herbal medicine and permaculture in North Carolina’s piedmont, Orgera is currently apprentice to the land on a quarter-acre plot in an urban flood zone and uses ecology, permaculture design principles, regenerative practices, eco-philosophy, ethnobotany, the history of medicine and healing, and herbal studies in both her writing and gardening life. 

Of the new imprint, Orgera writes, "I'm a better person because of plants. Herbalism and permaculture have taught me how better to listen to the world around me and to deeply respect balance—in myself, in nature, and in the relationship between people and our landscape. To be able to share the green life with readers, combining my passion for plants with my vocation of book-making and editing, is really a dream come true, and doing so with Microcosm—a publisher that really cares about its readers—is even better."

More information on submitting work to the imprint can be found here.

Chickasaw Press to be distributed by Microcosm

Microcosm Publishing is thrilled to announce that we will serve as the first-ever distributor for Chickasaw Press, the only publishing house in the U.S. owned by an Indigenous Nation. Based in Ada, Oklahoma, Chickasaw Press’s goal is to preserve, perpetuate, and provide an awareness of Chickasaw history and culture. The press offers a literary, scholarly, and accessible outlet for the work of Chickasaw authors, academics, and culture bearers, exercising intellectual sovereignty through ethical and culturally appropriate research and publication practices.

The agreement with Microcosm encompasses the Chickasaw Nation’s three publishing imprints: Chickasaw Press, focused on nonfiction titles about tribal history, culture, self-governance, and sovereignty; White Dog Press, a fiction imprint devoted to sharing Chickasaw culture, experiences, and history through creative works; and Leaning Pole Press, a scholarly outlet for Chickasaw writers and academics to explore subjects beyond the Chickasaw historical and cultural experience. 

Microcosm founder Joe Biel writes, "The broad array of rad books that Chickasaw creates along with their incredible mission fits like a puzzle piece into ours, where we can help them reach more readers with their history, culture, nation, and culinary delights. When they approached us, I was humbled and honored, and the more I learn about their press, the more those sentiments deepen."

Chickasaw Press titles will be available to order via Microcosm in November 2024.