Dr. Faith’s manual on the connection between mental and physical health is all about thinking with your guts, cooling your inflamed brain, and healing your whole self even when the world is conspiring to stress you out. Learn to sleep, eat, breathe, move, and generally feel better by harnessing the power of your vagus nerve!
It’s time to start planning the tenth volume of the Bikes in Space feminist bicycle science fiction anthology! The theme for this one is books.
Submissions are now open for original short fiction about bicycling and books, from a feminist perspective. These elements need to be intrinsic to the story. Send your most creative tales of bicycle-powered interlibrary loan on the moon, characters who literally leap out of books and go for a ride, a two-wheeled revolution sparked by seditious literature, the competing stories of steampunk velocipedists, a manual for futuristic bike messengers, a Borgesian meta-library, a literal rewriting of gender norms… Have fun with this one!
I especially welcome #ownvoices submissions and work by first-time writers.
Genre: Stories can be in any speculative or fantastical genre—hard science fiction, space opera, epic fantasy, alternative history, paranormal romance, hope punk, modern fairy tales and anything around or in between. No fanfic, poetry, or erotica, please.
Word count: 1,000 – 6,000 words
Format: Google doc, MS word, Pages, text document, or PDF. Comics submissions of up to 6 pages can be submitted in thumbnails.
Payment: A portion of profits after expenses from the Kickstarter project used to fund this book is split between contributors, with a guaranteed minimum of $50 each, plus copies of the book.
Deadline: September 1, 2021
Send your submissions to elly at microcosmpublishing dot com
I respond to all submissions and share my reading notes on request.
Gorgeous photos and simple design resonate strongly in this modern take on the tarot tradition. Each card in Gold Lyre Tarot represents the divine feminine of today’s blended American culture and gender-fluid evolution. The Tarot is a divination tool used as self-reflection. Checking in with where your intentions are placed, amplified, and felt carries into what you are manifesting at any given moment. Every card mirrors your spiritual and dynamic location within this Earthly realm. Real-life images leave you with the symbolism of everyday life rather than being overwhelmed with in-depth hermetic symbolism. With Gold Lyre Tarot, insight will come a little easier to those beginning their tarot journey, and it nicely complements other decks for those who are more intuitively advanced.
Publishing is a business with lots of opportunities to make really expensive, embarrassing, and/or hurtful mistakes! We don’t really have a culture of talking about our failures in this industry, but we think it’s healthy to acknowledge and learn from them.
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly talk about some of the biggest mistakes we’ve made over the years at Microcosm . . . and how we recovered from them. We didn’t have time to get to everything we ever botched, but maybe we’ll make this an annual episode!
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly answer a reader question from someone who wants to start a regional publishing company but isn’t sure how to figure out what format and market niche to pursue.
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly answer a listener question! A relatively new publisher has been turned down by distributors, but a larger publisher made a proposal to license her books. What do these things mean and what is in her best interest?
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly continue to talk about how to find distribution for your book publishing company.
Last week, we talked about how to get a trade distributor interested in working with you. This week we turn the tables to discuss the equally important question of how to choose distributors that you want to work with, particularly ones who have expertise in selling the types of books you publish.
Great news—we’ve got more interns! Meet the newest members of our team: Cassie Birk (she/her) and Kevin Glynn (he/him).
Where are you from/ where did you grow up?
Cassie: Grew up in Vancouver, WA right across the river from Portland.
Kevin: Born and raised in Boston MA, just moved out to Portland.
What first got you interested in publishing?
Cassie: I’ve been a big reader for as long as I can remember. I got involved in editing with a lit journal while I was in college and never stopped!
Kevin: I’ve always loved reading and writing and was involved in some zines and poetry publications in Boston. I have been pursuing publishing professionally for the last year.
What’s your favorite Microcosm book/ a Microcosm book you’d really like to read?
Cassie: The Velocipede Races will always be one of my favorites! I’m also proud to be an ex-barista who owns a copy of the Coffeeshop Crushes zine [ed: RIP]. Not a book, but I am excited to get my copy of the Gold Lyre tarot deck.
Kevin: I’ve really enjoyed reading Imprisoned in Prison [working title] while I work on editing it, eye-opening and sad to hear about life in prison during the pandemic.
How’s the pandemic treating you?
Cassie: I feel like I’ve performed a dozen mental backflips. At the start of the pandemic I was trying to graduate college in a basement apartment in Iowa City with a couple jobs in food service. Now, a year later, I’ve moved back to the PNW and I’m just trying to avoid video call burnout.
Kevin: Definitely been a crazy year, I moved across the country so that’s been stressful but also very exciting.
Do you have any pets?
Cassie: Not my own, but I have had many other people’s pets to keep me company over that last year. Shout outs to Benny, Lily, Milo, Marcellus, Harley, and Vincent (and their owners, of course).
Kevin: No pets personally but my roommate has a cat named Pax.
What do you do in your free time?
Cassie: Recently, I’ve been playing lots of DND and baking sourdough bread. I also like listening to music, trying new foods, and going on hikes.
Kevin: I like to hike, read, and play board games!
What’s one piece of media you’d recommend to anyone and everyone?
Cassie: Anyone who hasn’t listened to Welcome to Nightvale yet, totally should. Weird occult surrealism is translated perfectly to the podcast format, with awesome soundscaping and an entertaining story.
Kevin: Probably any Kurosawa movie, I love old movies and he’s my favorite director.
Where can people find you online?
Cassie: I’m always scrolling through Twitter @BirkCassie and I’m @cheezh8er on Instagram.
Kevin: Facebook is my only social media (don’t use it too much though).
On today’s People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly tackle a question we are asked all the time: how can a new or small publisher attract a trade distributor who can sell their books to bookstores, among other places?
New, expanded edition! Anxiety is a survival skill gone haywire. It happens when our brain is working so hard to protect us that it forgets to notice that the danger has passed. It feels like choking, stifling, smothering, tingling, panicking—our brains cut out and we start to make bad decisions—all normal anxiety reactions. Dr. Faith G. Harper, author of the bestselling Unfuck Your Brain and This is Your Brain on Depression packs a ton of knowledge and help into this practical manual. She helps us understand the history and science of anxiety, realize when it’s become a serious problem, know the difference between anxiety and other conditions, and cope with it in the moment as well as addressing it long term.