Last week, we published our annual financial report for 2020. This week on the podcast, we talk a bit more about what it means and how it came to pass.

Every week, Joe and Elly sit down to record a new episode of the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast. We talk about skills publishers need, our experiences, specific books (that we’ve published or otherwise), and publishing industry news.

We also answer listener questions—you can send yours to podcast at microcosmpublishing dot com.

You can watch our episodes on youtube, or listen to them wherever you get your podcasts.

This week on the podcast, we talk about some new zines that we’ve published recently.

The zines we talk about this month include:

• Cat Party #7 by Katie Haegele
• Indigenous Noms by Dr. Faith Harper
• How to Afford Your Damn Meds by Kenra Brewer
• There’s Something About a Train #7 by Hobo Lee
• My Tropey Life by Annie Carl

Every week, Joe and Elly sit down to record a new episode of the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast. We talk about skills publishers need, our experiences, specific books (that we’ve published or otherwise), and publishing industry news.

We also answer listener questions—you can send yours to podcast at microcosmpublishing dot com.

You can watch our episodes on youtube, or listen to them wherever you get your podcasts.

This week on the podcast, we put the spotlight on Joyce Brabner’s new book The Courage Party: Helping Our Resilient Children Understand and Survive Sexual Assault. It’s a hardcover, illustrated middle reader, telling the story of how, after being attacked in a park, young Danielle comes to see herself not as a victim or even a survivor, but as a courageous crime fighter.

This book is deeply important to us—and it also had the bad luck of coming back from the printer in the beginning of April, 2020, just when the libraries, schools, and comics stores we expected to be its major markets had all shut down. We talk about some of the strategies we and publishers are using to get the word out about our new books that came out during the pandemic.

Every week, Joe and Elly sit down to record a new episode of the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast. We talk about skills publishers need, our experiences, specific books (that we’ve published or otherwise), and publishing industry news.

We also answer listener questions—you can send yours to podcast at microcosmpublishing dot com.

You can watch our episodes on youtube, or listen to them wherever you get your podcasts.

I know that for most of us in the US (or even those just following US politics right now), our blood pressure is through the roof. (Personally, I woke up with a stress headache yesterday and it’s still hanging around today like an unwanted roommate.)

So, in honor of all of us combating election stress, here’s an exercise from our upcoming title, Unfuck Your Body by Faith G. Harper, PhD, LPC-S, ACS, ACN. This exercise should help you reconnect with your body and relieve stress (and hopefully lower your blood pressure).

Alternate Nostril Exercise
(Nadi Shodhana Pranayama)

This breathing exercise includes breathing from alternate nostrils. This exercise cleans nostrils, nadis, and sinus. It is also helpful in the activation left and right side of the brain simultaneously.

• Get your body comfortable, sitting if possible.
• Place your left hand on your left knee, and lift your right hand up to your nose.
• Tuck your middle three fingers into the palm of your hand, leaving your pinky and thumb extended (the universal sign for “call me!”)
• Complete an exhale, then use your right thumb to close your right nostril. Inhale through your left nostril, then use your pinky to close your left nostril while opening your right nostril and exhaling through the right nostril.

That is one complete breath cycle.

Continue for up to five minutes, completing the practice by finishing with an exhale on the left side.

This technique is great for balancing the left and right hemispheres of the brain and balancing the vagal system. Studies of pranayama have demonstrated that alternate nostril breathing was the only type of breath work that was found to have a positive effect on the cardiovascular system (heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure).

Hypertension, an active migraine, an active sinus, or an chest infection are contraindications for this technique. Also generally be aware of discomfort if you have a full stomach.

This is a sad one.

Ruby was the medical alert dog for Microcosm founder and CEO Joe Biel from February, 2012 to June, 2020. She was a constant presence in our office and at events.

Her service dog training meant she was skilled at making herself invisible most of the time, often sleeping curled up next to Joe’s desk or under the table at a convention or a restaurant. Even so, she made friends everywhere she went, when she ventured out at Joe’s side, or to occasionally alert someone passing by that their blood sugar was dropping (she did this by poking their leg with her nose). When she walked by one of Portland’s many brunch spots, she would often go down the line of people waiting, alerting them all. One day, a couple was fighting on the street and she ran up to alert them. She wanted to help everyone. Her intelligence and loyalty were astounding. Once she had met someone, she considered them part of her pack forever, even when meeting them again years later.

Along with her remarkable skill at detection, she was also trained for public access, which meant she could handle herself gracefully in situations, like a grocery store, restaurant, airplane, or train, that would challenge even a well-trained pet dog. She never learned to pedal her own bike, but we celebrated her bikeyness a couple of years ago with this fanciful enamel pin.

Thanks to her unique assistance in managing his disability, Joe was able to lead Microcosm out of the recession, growing us from a small press to a midlist publisher and wholesaler, and more important, to begin to regain his health and safely live a full, active life.

Ruby loved to travel everywhere with Joe by train, plane, and bicycle. Food was her primary motivation. And she loved people; her training taught her to be standoffish when she was wearing her service dog vest, but in her off-hours she loved nothing more than a belly rub or a scratch behind the ears. And even when working, she knew when someone was talking about her and perked up with great interest.

She passed away on Tuesday, June 23rd, just hours before her first book, Do Not Pet, arrived from the printer. She is dearly missed by all who knew and admired her.

Ruby’s trainer told us that she was the rare dog who found her purpose. In her honor, we’re continuing to center our own meaning and purpose every day. We hope that her legacy will outlive her, educating people about the amazing work of service animals in opening up the world to people with many kinds of disabilities.