Nicole LaRue is both a queer artist and graphic designer and is widely known for her iconic work on the Women’s March on Washington logo. Her latest work, the HeART Tarot, is a unique deck featuring beautiful, original illustrations incorporating the shape of the human heart and elements of the natural world into each tarot archetype, and reminding us that the heart and mind aren’t working in opposition.
This week on the pod, Nic hangs out with Joe and Elly to talk astrology, intuition vs the brain, publishing, and so much more.
Hot Pants, long an underground classic and now available in a gorgeous new edition, offers great basic sexual health information along with tried and true herbal treatments for common gynecological problems. “Patriarchy sucks,” the authors begin. “It’s robbed us of our autonomy and much of our history. We believe it’s integral for women to be aware and in control of our own bodies.”
In that spirit, diagrams and herbal remedies teach you how to diagnose and heal many basic problems, including bladder infections, inducing your period, easing cramps and PMS, aphrodisiacs, and dealing with pregnancy. You’ll learn herbal remedies to ease every stage of your menstrual cycle. This book deserves a place next to your copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves.
Welcome to the Indie Solidarity Project! Part of Microcosm’s special sauce is our network of amazing retailers around the world—some of whom are traditional bookstores, but many more who aren’t book-focused—we peddle “books for stores who don’t sell books!” as our sales team puts it. Much like our Bookstore Solidarity Project, this series highlights our partners who run all kinds of small and independent businesses, blazing their own trails, supporting their communities, and growing our small world.
For our series debut, we’re stoked to feature Sisters in Christ of New Orleans (the city with the most Microcosm authors, FYI!). Dive in to learn more about their infoshop roots, favorite comix artists, and beyond:
Your name, pronouns, and role at the store? Bryan Funck, he/him, owner
Tell us a little bit about the store and your community We’re a small record and book store that grew out of the Iron Rail Infoshop, specializing mainly in punk/indie/underground, radical literature, small press comics and zines. We’ve been at the current location for about nine years; we were in a smaller spot for a year or two before that; and we handled the records at Iron Rail for about six years. No cats currently, but we love the cat down at our friends’ shop Blue Cypress Books!
How was the store’s name chosen? We wanted something that reflected New Orleans culture without being fleur de lis and the saints, Mardi Gras and Bourbon Street, alligators and 504, etc. We also wanted to stay away from a generic record shop name to create some mystique.
How did you get into your area of business? Distro’ing records at punk and hardcore shows in the late 90s then running the record rack at the anarchist bookstore.
What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people? We’re not religious.
What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store? Someone got an enormous tattoo of our shop logo on their abdomen.
What are some of your favorite way to support your community? Buying and selling local records, tapes, books, and zines! Disseminating relevant information to our radical allies! Using local artists to print and screen flyers and shirts, using the local pressing plant NORP to make records, using local video techs for creating shorts.
Trying to get high-profile reviews for your books can feel like a rat race. So many publishers competing for the same space in the same publications (and space in readers’ brains). But do reviews really matter? Are they worth the time publishers put into getting them?
This week on the podcast, we’re back with the booksellers and publishers of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association tradeshow to get their thoughts on the importance of book reviews.
Humor for cult survivors and true crime enthusiasts
As this ride called life starts to feel more like a perilously rickety rollercoaster, people are seeking any kind of stability they can grab onto, and—whoops!—suddenly they’re in a cult. In this tongue-in-cheek yet refreshingly generous dive into the contemporary cult craze, Mary Beth Chapman explores what defines a cult and why Americans (and the media) are so fascinated with them. Rather than focus on the foolishness of cult members, Chapman explores the contributing factors like capitalism, isolation, and overwhelm that lead people to seek firmer spiritual footing in the first place.
Served up with humor, self-awareness, and fun charts, the book also includes tips for starting your own cult, including how to choose your idol and how to hire the just the right charismatic cult leader, plus activities like word salad mad libs, red flag bingo, and your very own cult leader paper dolls. Perfect for cult questioners, kool-aid critics, and zealots for fun facts, the quest for the one true path just got a fresh dose of snarky good times.
Any activist’s necessity for over 30 years, the Slingshot organizer isa day planner that fits your radical life. Every page has unique illustration, and important dates, birthdays, and events in radical history are marked.
More than just a calendar and date book, the Slingshot includes space to write your phone numbers, a contact list of radical leftist groups around the globe, a menstrual calendar, info on police repression, and extra note pages to record all your important revolutionary ideas. It also lists popular activist and alternative cultural holidays. As if that weren’t enough, it also teaches you key phrases in multiple languages; phrases such as “freedom and mutual aid” and “where is the library?”
Can publishers tell if you submit work with A.I.? Does it matter if they can’t even tell?
Jane Freidman of “The Bottom Line” joins Joe and Elly this week to talk about what publishers mean with A.I. disclosures, what presses are looking out for, and how authors can communicate with their publishers about it.
When the veil thins, the bicycle revolution rises—along with thirteen new, original, spooky stories for the thirteenth volume in the series!
Gather ‘round, ghoulfriends, and peer into this enchanting collection of ghost stories, tall tales, and feminist fictions simmering with cyclist power. This monster mashup of thirteen queer and quirky stories grants us a glimpse into the world beyond this one, where community, creativity, and bike culture reign—a world where DIY zombies start a monster zine collective to fight their oppression by “normals,” time moves backwards as bones are covered again with flesh, cryptids defend fellow outcasts from bullying, and teen crushes take an otherwordly (though not unwelcome!) turn. Whether shared with your feminist book club, passed around the Halloween house show, or read alone on a dark and stormy night, each story is a spell, reanimating the land of the living with more fun, imagination, and bike rides.
Read on for a sneak peek at What Rides at Nightedited by Summer Jewel Keown and series editor Elly Blue, available for preorder from our site or your local bookseller, heading to a shelf near you!
Holidays can be magical—and they can also suck so hard. Need to make a plan for Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, or other holidays? Trying to figure out how (or if) to observe a birthday or difficult anniversary? This holiday survival guide from Dr. Faith G. Harper, bestselling author of Unfuck Your Brain and Unfuck Your Boundaries, is for anyone who’s ever struggled with the expense, drama, loneliness, pressure, and feelings that go along with so many of those big days on the calendar.
Learn coping, logistical, and conversational strategies for making it through a family holiday dinner without bloodshed. Figure out how to go your own way next year (and how to have that conversation). Gain skills and recipes for hosting your friends or chosen family. Navigate religious, political, and dietary differences. Whatever you celebrate (or would prefer not to), this funny, level-headed, helpful book offers perspective and tools for making all holidays more meaningful and less stressful.
Read an exclusive excerpt of Dr. Faith’s latest, Unfuck Your Holidays, shipping now from our site or available in stores October 7, 2025:
Don’t get scared straight! Joe Carlough & Gina Brandolino, authors of the new book QUEER HORROR: FUN AND FREAKY PERSPECTIVES ON MACABRE MEDIA, join Joe and Elly this week to talk about horror, coming out, their favorite movies, and more.
