Portland (and Cleveland!)'s most colorful, authentic, and empowering publishing house and distributor, Microcosm Publishing & Distribution is a vertically integrated publishing house that equips readers to make positive changes in their lives and in the world around them. Microcosm emphasizes skill-building, showing hidden histories, and fostering creativity through challenging conventional publishing wisdom with books and zines about DIY skills, food, bicycling, gender, self-care, and social justice. Microcosm was started by Joe Biel in a bedroom closet as a distro and record label in 1996 and is now among the oldest independent book publishing houses in Portland, OR. Microcosm focuses on relating the experiences of what it is like to be a marginalized person and strives to be recognized for spirit, creativity, and value. All books are printed in the U.S., and the company doubles the industry average in number of women authors and prioritizes hiring of special needs employees. Microcosm constantly poses the question “How can we remove barriers to success for marginalized people in our industry?” In 2022, Microcosm was named Publishers Weekly's Fastest Growing Publisher.
Microcosm has lived in milk crates, in closets, in a mud room, in a windowless basement, in a church, and under a desk at a major credit card company. We've brought our brightly colored books to infoshops, zine fests, media summits, bicycle conferences, parks, street corners, house shows, dirty bars, all night coffeeshops, art museums, and every corner of the mainstream where we can clear away a little space to set up shop. We set out to save ourselves from not caring, but out there in the margins we've found communities worth always doing it better for. Now we have contracts instead of handshakes, a warehouse instead of a fanny pack full of zines. We have a staff, we have relationships in the industry that send our books to places we wouldn't have dreamed we could walk into ourselves. We're not as drunk or dirty as we used to be. But still, at heart, we've got this milk crate strapped to the back of a bike and we're riding wildly across town to hand you the book that might just be the one that saves your life.
Not sure where to get started? Check out our starter pack.
Here to learn about publishing? Nerd out with us in the People's Guide to Publishing podcast archives.
In Portland?
Microcosm Publishing hQ
2752 N Williams Ave map
Portland, OR 97227
503-799-2698
Open for pickups and deliveries only: 11am–3pm Mon thru Sat (or call 360 291 7226 for an appointment)
Meet our exclusive distribution client publishers
- Birdcage Bottom Books (Don Giovanni Records (on our website)
- GOBLINKO (on our website)
- Lit Star Press (on our website)
- Scorched Earth Press
an introduction to Microcosm Publishing
another introduction to Microcosm Publishing
Who we are:
Kalen Landow is our sales director. After 12 years at National Book Network she now handles managing our field sales teams and lovingly placing books in thousands of small retailers (and some large ones too).
Contact Kalen about books for your store!
503-333-4722
Kristine Anstine is our major account sales manager. Connecting people and stores with books is her lifelong passion that she pursued for the previous 25 years at Last Gasp and before that at Comic Relief. She also enjoys saddle-stapling zines, modifying signs, and traveling with her family.
Contact Kristine about books for your store!
971-277-9435
Sidnee Grubb is a co-owner and sales associate. She helps gift and specialty stores find the right books for their customers and helps us add wonderful new people to our team as we grow.
Contact Sidnee about buying books for your gift or specialty shop.
Anna-Lisa Sandstrum handles sales to library and trade accounts, when not nerding out about BISAC codes.
Contact Anna-Lisa to discuss long-needed improvements to publishers' database software or make an order.
(360) 291-7226
Tyler Murphy is our customer service manager, ensuring that your books get out the door with aplomb
Contact Tyler if you have an issue with a wholesale or reseller order that needs attention.
(360) 291-7226
Jeff Hayes is a co-owner who manages our customer service and outgoing order logistics.
Contact Jeff if you have questions, issues, or kudos about an order you placed with us.
(360) 291-7226
Dylan Ray bridges three worlds: customer service, production, and sales.
Contact Dylan when you have questions about your Faire order.
Squishy Christiansen is on our operations team, overseeing Kickstarter reward fulfillment and making sure that our orders get out the door painlessly.
Contact Squishy when you have questions about your Kickstarter rewards or BFF subscription
Sarah Koch is a co-owner and Operations Manager who oversees outgoing and incoming payments, our receiving team in Portland, editorial tasks, and new title purchasing. You will find her cursing a box full of damaged books while listening to the Cure and watching the X-Files. She is not related to the brothers that you are thinking of.
Contact Sarah if you want to pay an invoice.
Marissa Santillan-Guzman is our receiving and customer service associate in Portland. She receives deliveries relentlessly, adds them to our catalog, helps keep inventory accurate, and can help figure out where your order is.
Contact Marissa to commiserate over the state of warehousing and shipping in the publishing industry.
(360) 291-7226
Abby Rice is our marketing supervisor, who creates discoverability and marketing data for the multitude of books that show up daily on our doorsteps.
Contact Abby to talk about D&D campaigns and discuss new ways that people find new books!
(360) 291-7226
Tomy Huynh is a co-owner and our marketing and ebook manager. He handles our title data and propagates it into the world via an ONIX feed, as well as eBook production.
Contact Tomy if you find incorrect data about our published books, or if there is a formatting issue with one of our ebooks.
Olivia Rollins is our editorial supervisor. She keeps our editorial schedule on track and helps our books and zines become their best possible selves before they meet their readers.
Lex Orgera is an editorial associate.
Terry Sullivan is our Portland warehouse manager who keeps everything running like clockwork, but in a friendly way.
Lance Rossi (he/they) in Portland puts your books in your box with lightning accuracy and precision.
Tara Unseelie is a Portland shipping associate who gets you your books on time and in good condition.
Scottie Bradford wears many stylish hats, including shipping, marketing, and publicity.
Contact Scottie if you want to feature one of our titles or interview an author for your publication.
