Monthly Archives: April 2017

Contest Alert! : The Velocipede Races

If you like YA novels, bicycle fiction, strong characters, or just empowering books, you should check out The Velocipede Races by the rad Emily June Street. Published around this time a year ago, Velo Races is Microcosm’s first young adult novel… first steampunk novel… first feminist YA steampunk bicycle racing novel—a lot of firsts, but featuring our good old fashioned theme of self-empowerment.

This is what I am. I’m a jockey. I ride velos. I ride velos as well as a man. If I stay quiet, if I keep it a secret, I’m just being a coward. Don’t you see how it is? Someone has to break the box. If I don’t show them what I can do, if I pretend to be a man forever, the box isn’t broken. But if I say, yes, I’m a woman, and I did this thing that no one believed I could do, then I’ve made room for someone else to do it, too. I have to make space where there is none, just like in a velocipede race. 

Praise for Velo Races has applauded the style and writing, and the bad-ass hero, Emmeline, including the cover blurb by steampunk queen Cherie Priest. Here’s some of its love:

“Street also does not glorify or fetishize Victorian women’s fashion, as many steampunk stories do…I enjoyed getting to see a young woman using the development of her physical skills as her jumping off point to grow in her emotional life as an adult, and not solely the love of a good man.” http://www.paperdroids.com/2016/07/05/velocipede-versus-corset/

“This book weaves in the history of women and cycling into a fictional story about one girls journey into her emancipation. Not only is this the first novel that I’ve read that weaves in these themes, it also comes with many firsts: first steampunk novel, first YA steampunk feminist/bicycle racing novel, and my first love into the work of Emily June Street.” http://citygirlrides.blogspot.fr/2016/02/book-review-velocipede-races.html

“Tense, thoughtful, and truly thrilling – The Velocipede Races is a marvelous fantasy of manners and machinery.” Cherie Priest, bestselling author of the Clockwork Century novels

 

If you haven’t gotten to pick one up yet, you can get always get a copy from us or wherever books are sold, OR enter to win ONE of FIFTY copies over on Goodreads from now till the end of the month. Happy reading!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Velocipede Races by Emily June Street

The Velocipede Races

by Emily June Street

Giveaway ends May 01, 2017.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Biketopia

In a world with an uncertain future, do you imagine for the best or for the worst case scenario? Twelve writers tackle extreme utopias and dystopias—and the grey areas in between—in Biketopia, the fourth volume of the Bikes in Space series of feminist science fiction stories about bicycling. Some find love and fierce resistance in the end times; others imagine an ecological future of saving technology, with solarpunk ecotopian visions, at times paired with crushing social control. Whatever your own future or present reality, these stories will motivate and inspire you to envision something different… and maybe even better.

Fix Your Clothes Officially Pubs Today!

Fix Your Clothes: The Sustainable Magic of Mending, Patching, and Darning

 

by Raleigh Briggs

64 pp, 5.5×7″ paperback, ISBN: 978-1-62106-906-5

Out today! April 11th, 2017 from Microcosm Publishing

The bestselling zine is now a charming new paperback encouraging readers to save money (and the planet) by fixing their own clothes.

Clothes are expensive and the clothing industry is the 2nd most polluting industry worldwide, not to mention responsible for oppressive labor conditions. DIY enthusiast Raleigh Briggs offers a simple solution, giving readers the basic tools to fix, sustain, and breathe new life into clothes they’d otherwise throw away.

Ideal for thrifters, vintage clothes collectors, and anyone into not tossing their clothes because a button pops off or a zipper is stuck. There is something deeply pleasing and satisfying about mending and making clothes last.”— Angry Chicken

“A really solid foundation on sewing.” – Utne Reader

 

About Raleigh Briggs:

Raleigh is one of our best-selling authors, with Make Your Place: Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills, Make it Last: Prolonging and Preserving the Things We Love, and a charming collection of zines, like Herbal First Aid and Non-Toxic Housecleaning. She lives with her husband and two needy cats in Seattle, Washington.

 

Rampant Media Consumption edition 2017!

For the first time in a while, we asked a few staff members what they’ve been into so far this year! Read on for Elly, Cyn, & Jeri’s responses, plus a gift!

Elly

My favorite media lately:

Patti Smith accepting Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize more graciously than he ever did anything in his life. Her mid-song screwup makes the performance even better.

– I read In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate — a really mindblowing and wonderful book about addiction

– And I loved the movie Kedi, a documentary about the street cats of Istanbul:

 

 Cyn

• Been catching up on the amazing graphic novel Locke & Key, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez. The horror genre is my passion and Joe Hill consistently puts out brilliant writing, and this is some of the best: engaging, thoughtful, endlessly creative and often viscerally brutal.

• Been obsessed with song covers; my current songs on loop are Johnny Cash’s Hurt, Rasputina’s You Don’t Own Me, Janet Devlin’s Friday I’m In Love.

• Was disappointed with Marvel Television for the many, many ways they dropped the ball on their new Netflix show Iron Fist, but fell in loveloveLOVE with FX’s Marvel show, Legi⊗n, which was amAAZing (why can’t I find feminist analysis/reviews on it yet??? ).

• Recently reconnected with my college best friend watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer while on the phone together, which is something we used to do (in person) when I was on the east coast. We had been halfway through season 5 when I moved, and in March we finished it via phone. It’s my 3rd or 4th time watching the show, but the finale left me (us) in tears all over again. Weeks later, they’ve taken all 7 seasons of Buffy off Netflix…

 

Jeri

Soundtracks! I am super judgmental about movie soundtracks. In fact the film can be shitty but if the soundtrack is stellar, the film is redeemed. Here is a list of films with great soundtracks. And listen on Spotify below.

 • Snow Falling on Cedars • Last Tango in Paris • Public Enemies • The Alamo (the one with Billy Bob Thornton) • The Revenant • Bridge of Spies • Let’s Get Lost • Miami Vice (the movie with Jamie Fox) • Ned Kelly (with Heath Ledger) • Last of the Mohicans • The Last Time I Committed Suicide • The Last Picture Show • The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. • The Changeling (with Angelina Jolie) • In the Electric Mist • Country Strong • The Informers • Paranoid Park • The Good, The Bad, The Ugly • 

 

What are YOU reading/watching/listening to/or obsessed with this year??

Use the hashtag #RampantMediaConsumption on Twitter, Litsy, or Instagram, tag us or let us know, and get a 10% off code good for anything on our website all month, to further encourage your media consumption!

Bikes in Space


A powerful tribute to feminist sci-fi about bicycles, this zine gravitates away from the unfortunately-traditional macho heroes, hurtling through space with giant guns, ready to protect and/or tame their scantily clad space babe. These authors’ visions of the future are populated by strong, intelligent, empowered women with complex personalities. And it was a vision apparently shared by many: It’s the largest issue of TTL yet! Help us fend off this space shark attack in style! Ieeeee!