On Friday, January 12th,​ 2018​​ ​Microcosm’s lawyer filed a complaint against Alex Wrekk, Joe’s ex-wife of over 20 years ago. The complaint comes after​ over​​ ​a decade of attempts at settlement, mediation, negotiation, accountability processes, and many other earnest attempts at resolution. It is our last resort and one we are not at all thrilled to have to take.

Our sole goals with this​ ​​complaint​​ is to resolve an old conflict so everyone can move on with their lives and end Wrekk’s persistent harassment of Joe Biel, Microcosm staff, and​ ​​people who believe in and support Microcosm.​ ​In 2006, Wrekk began publicly claiming that Biel’s literal communication style and disability to notice and respond to others emotional expression and nonverbal communication neurotypically were “emotional abuse.” Pathologizing of autism is common and if you’re unfamiliar here’s a story on Invisibilia about an autistic doctor who had seven medical assistants quit in one year due to, as she puts it, “over and over again the world didn’t respond the way she expected.”

Wrekk’s persistent campaign o​f ​​ bullying and​ ​neurophobic harassment has caused untold amounts of suffering to ​hundreds of people in the form of stress, ​trauma, ​poisoned​ relationships, canceled events, and ​friends told that they ha​ve​ to choose sides. We wish her no harm; we want only to be left alone to be able to go about our lives and our work without fear​, ​just as we leave her alone​.

We did not​ ​​want to continue having this conflict publicly ​​because our goal​ ​​has always been​ ​to seek an end to this drama. Howev​er, as she ​continues to harass us, we want to again push for resolution so we can all move on and do the things that we want to be doing. If you ​have questions, most of them should be answered here and if you have something pressing that isn’t, feel free to drop us a line.

Update – June 1, 2018 –
As you may have heard, in response to our complaint, Joe’s ex filed a motion to dismiss our case on first amendment grounds—stating that she has the right to continue to harass Joe and the staff and authors of Microcosm Publishing as a matter of informing the community about an issue of public interest. We disagree strongly, and contested this motion to the best of our efforts. Unfortunately, due to the statute of limitations, her motion was successful. We were simply too late in speaking up.

We are deeply disappointed by this outcome, but know that we did our best. From here on out we will continue to focus on our work, publishing books that matter to our readers and providing tools to build a healthier, more empathetic world. We ask that Alex and her cohort do the same: leave us alone as we leave you alone, so that we can all live and do better.

You’re invited! Our Elly Blue Publishing imprint has announced a call for submissions for its sixth anthology of feminist bicycle science fiction, with the theme of Dragons. The deadline is April 1st, 2018 (but it isn’t an April Fool’s joke, despite being a lot of good silly fun). Read the entire call for submissions and start dreaming up your story.

We’re not really big on “market research” here at Microcosm. In fact, as the “marketing director,” I can say with authority that most of our “marketing” work involves either submitting unspeakably mind-numbing spreadsheets to various distributor databases or giggling til our stomachs hurt over weird ideas and crass titles that tend to turn into stuff like our most popular books, our poster catalogs, and the most fun new events we get to attend.

But we’ve grown and changed a lot in the last few years (and definitely in the 12 years since our last reader survey in 2006), and we thought we’d check in with you all about what your needs are, how we’re doing, and if you have any wild ideas or pressing concerns that we can address.

So here it is. Please tell us whatever you like. If you decide to include your contact info we’ll add you to our monthly newsletter email list, but we won’t share it with anyone else. If you want to talk with us directly and get an answer to your specific question, feel free to email us.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

It’s been more than three years since Joe went on Reddit to do an “Ask Me Anything” Q&A session, aka an AMA. The results were surprising… to us, at least. The above image is pretty representative of the kind of “question” he got the first time around.

Never one to be deterred, he’s coming back for another #ActuallyAutistic AMA on Wednesday, November 22, 2017 at noon PST / 3pm EST. You’re invited to ask him anything you’d like about publishing, documentary filmmaking, living with autism, dealing with bullying, having a service dog, or how he gets his hair to do that.

Please join us!

Update: This AMA is live at this link!

Our brains are doing our best to help us out, but they can be real assholes sometimes. Dr. Faith is here to help! Sometimes it seems like your own brain is messing with you—melting down in the middle of the grocery store, picking fights with your date, getting you addicted to something, or shutting down completely at the worst possible moments. That’s where Dr. Faith’s practice comes in. With humor, patience, and lots of swearing, Unfuck Your Brain shows you the science behind what’s going on in your skull and talks you through the process of retraining your brain to respond appropriately to the non-emergencies of everyday life. If you’re working to deal with old traumas, or if you just want to have a more measured and chill response to situations you face all the time, this book can help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and get your life and brain back.