Monthly Archives: February 2023

Let’s get honest about publishing: An interview with Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly are joined by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, whose influential publishing industry commentary on blogs and social media has been influenced by years of experience in every part of the book world; as an author, editor, slam poet, marketer, publisher, and more. In this wide-ranging conversation, we talk about the benefits of coming into publishing from an untraditional background, publishers’ tendencies to keep their cards close and why we all want to change that, and plenty of insights and predictions about the current state of the industry.

Everyday Herbal Teamaking

This unfussy, spirited guide to 35 readily accessible herbs offers botanical names, medical reputations from various modern and historical sources, good-humoredly honest tasting notes, and illustrations to help identify what you’ve just foraged, grown, or bought at the herb shop or health food store. With teacher and tea aficionado Glenna McLean as your guide, travel back in time by enjoying a blend of herbs that King Tut savored, a tea that was thought to ward off the Plague in the 14th Century, and the herbs imbibed by druids at Stonehenge and Puritan church services. Quaff brews purported to bring you courage, quench (or ignite) lust, ward off scurvy, and soothe stress and pain. Includes warnings and contraindications so you can pursue your herbal tea habit safely and happily for years to come.

The History of Miami Hip Hop – an interview with John Cordero

This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, we interview special guest John Cordero, author of the brand new Microcosm book The History of Miami Hip Hop. John was a teenage hip hop head and graffiti artist who started an underground newspaper, The Cipher, with his friends in the late 90s to chronicle the burgeoning scene around them that was being ignored by mainstream magazines. He drew on his reporting, memories, and interviews with others who were there to bring us this fun and fascinating book, full of photos and vivid events. He joined us for a video interview to talk about the book (and offers some of the best advice about publishing we’ve ever had on the show).

The Transmasculine Guide to Physical Transition Workbook

A supportive workbook for transgender men and transmasculine and nonbinary people who are considering or in the midst of physical transition. Exercises help you check in with yourself every step of the way as you explore your needs, hopes, plans, and experiences. In these pages, you’ll find plenty of space to work through what transition path is right for you, take notes about your research and appointments, track your meds and reactions, plan your surgery and recovery, journal through your fears and dreams, write supportive letters to yourself, and more. Compiled by someone who’s been there, this safe and supportive workbook is designed to help you find yourself and enjoy who you truly are. Can be used on its own, or alongside Sage Buch’s book The Transmasculine Guide to Physical Transition

How can publishers respond to call-outs?

This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, we tackle a reader’s question: They are nervous about getting called out on social media by an angry author and want to know how to handle that situation. These conversations can be difficult even in private; we walk you through the ins and outs of having them in public, ideally coming out the other side with everyone feeling heard, everyone learning, and stronger relationships all around.

Unfuck Your Eating

Food is complicated. And our relationships with food and eating are all kinds of fucked up. It doesn’t help that cultural messages about health, diet, body image, and weight are fatphobic and often medically dangerous. Dr. Faith Harper, author of the bestselling Unfuck Your Brain and Unfuck Your Body, brings her trademark combination of science, humor, and real talk to help us work through our food, health, and body image issues and develop a healthier relationship with food so that it can fuel us and bring us pleasure. She delves into the difference between eating disorders and disordered eating and the causes and consequences of both, breaks down the difference between various behaviors, tackles trauma and other co-occurring conditions, and provides compassionate and practical steps to improve your eating habits and repair your relationship with yourself. 

Unfuck Your Business

How do you start and run a successful business, despite the odds? In this unique guide to entrepreneurship, successful business owners and bestselling authors Joe Biel and Dr. Faith G. Harper teach you practical math and management skills alongside the emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and coping skills that you need in order to overcome internal barriers to success no matter what type of business you are in. 

How to Transform a Conflict: An Interview with Gwendolyn Olton

This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, we were joined by Gwen Olton, co-director of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, to talk about her new book that’s hot off the press from Microcosm, From Conflict to Community: Transforming Conflicts without Authorities. We love this book, which borrows from many different styles of conflict transformation and resolution to bring us the practical tools we need to listen to each other and navigate the conflicts we face every day — without calling the cops or HR.

Check out the video below, and also read the blog interview Gwen wrote for us to talk more about her book and its process of coming into the world!


MCP: What inspired you to write your book?

GO: There were a few things that coalesced to inspire me to write the book. I had finished reading Sarah Schulman’s Conflict Is Not Abuse and her discussions of “bad friend” groups and the influence they have on conflicts stuck with me. At the same time, I was supporting many folks with conflicts that were relatively minor – not the sort of thing you might bring to a mediator but enough that they were disruptive in a person’s life. Meanwhile, whenever I was invited to facilitate a workshop on conflict or attend someone else’s workshops or skillbuilding on conflict we were very rarely talking about how to support others in conflict when you’re not a mediator or the parties aren’t really sitting down together to discuss. And amidst all of this, has been the growing awareness of just how much we escalate conflicts up to authorities instead of working within our circles to try to work things out. 

What was it like to publish with Microcosm?

Easy peasy! I don’t have a basis of comparison since this is my first book, but communication and transparency have been excellent, which I really appreciate. 

What was the submission/query process like for you?

They were pretty straightforward processes. I had an idea for this book, I fleshed it out a bit and submitted the idea. Then, I exchanged some emails with Microcosm and provided a writing sample or two and that was that! 

Do you still have your original query to us? Are you willing to share it?

Sure! See below:

This book would benefit the reader by offering a large array of strategies for transforming conflicts without appeals to punitive authority figures.

Three publications similar to mine would be:

1. How to be Accountable Workbook: Take responsibility to change your behavior

2. Doing it Better: Conflict resolution and accountability after abuse in leftist communities

3. Unfuck Your Boundaries: Build better relationships through consent, communication, and expressing your needs

My book is unique from these and other titles in that it provides the reader with tools for successfully navigating these struggles as both a participant in a conflict and as a 3rd-party intervener without formal training. Folks would be interested in buying this book when they want help keeping community and relationship intact and don’t have access to formal mediators or facilitators, or cannot afford them. I want to offer this book because I see a deep need for collaboration and conflict transformation skills and believe folks can be empowered to work on these practices even without formal training. I want to offer something that is approachable and easy to pick up and brings relief to those who are in conflict and don’t know where to turn. I have a background in transformative mediation, restorative justice and restorative process facilitation, group decision making facilitation, and a number of communication practices including Motivational Interviewing and NVC. I have a MA in conflict resolution. I volunteer as a mediator and conflict consultant for a number of small organizations including a local low-power radio station and roller derby league. I also offer non-court based mediation to folks by referral for free.

I appreciate your consideration and am open to feedback about this pitch if you have time and willingness to share it. Thank you.

What else have you written?

This is the only book I’ve written but I write newsletters for the organization I work at frequently as well as blog posts. I have some things on Medium.

What are you currently reading? 

Right now, I’m reading:

What’s the best book you read in the last year?

This is weirdly hard for me to answer because I have an aversion to choosing a favorite or best anything and also because of my poor sense of time but two books I really enjoyed and think I read last year are:

What’s next for you? 

Besides living, working, and trying to be part of community generally here in Rochester, NY, I’m working on some projects combining visuals / illustrations and writing. Right now I’m working on a visual guide or workbook or zine on some conflict practices, trying to turn some information into some easier to digest and use illustrations. I’m also in the early stages of collaborating with a friend in the Netherlands on visuals, maybe a book, on collaborative practices. 

Where can people find you online?

I’m not in a ton of places / spaces online but here are a few I can think of:

Any in-person events coming up soon?

Not for the book at the moment. I do a lot of in-person events related to conflict with work which you can find at our website. Hoping to do some in-person book events soon!