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Your Cozy Life: DIY Nesting Skills for a Sustainable Home

Save money, save the planet, and craft a sustainable domestic life without relying on smelly, toxic, expensive consumer products. This handwritten and hand-drawn book of charming tutorials for natural housekeeping and home repair, organic gardening and food preservation, herbal first aid, and mending clothes is both fun and accessible. It’s full of simple skills that anyone can and should learn. From creating healthy tinctures and salves to preserving excess food to fixing a leaky faucet, this book is great if you’re looking to live more simply, create a comfortable nest, and truly do it yourself. Combining the power of Raleigh Briggs’s bestselling Make Your Place and Make It Last to form a complete guide to everything you need to consume less and live more in line with your values. 

Womb Witch: Herbal Magick for Reproductive Health

Liberate your uterus

Herbal remedies and wise perspectives to help make your cycle less of a rollercoaster.

Ever felt like your uterus is out to get you? Or experienced dismay at the politicians out to get your uterus? This book will speak straight to your soul. Get to know your body with this inclusive guide to herbal, holistic self-care for every womb, at every stage of life—from puberty to post-menopause and everything in between. Herbalist and pregnancy loss doula Angelica Merritt offers a wealth of anatomical science, plant medicine, and nutritional and herbal strategies to support body literacy, a regular menstrual cycle, and your reproductive goals. If you’re dealing with irregular menstruation, PCOS, infertility, pregnancy loss or release, perimenopause, or any other reproductive health issue, look to these pages for remedies that bridge the scientific and the spiritual. Inside you’ll find guidance in holistic modalities such as castor oil packs, breath work, breast and womb massage, baths, and infused oils, along with rituals and journal prompts. You’ll learn about the connections between the womb, the moon cycle, and the archetypes of Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Transform your self-care through the magick of the womb within!

Bug Life: How Bees, Butterflies, and Other Insects Rule the World

Bugs are everywhere! Humans often think of insects as gross or creepy, but we couldn’t survive without them. In this love letter to bugs, biologist, linguist, and bug enthusiast Karyn Light-Gibson introduces us to an array of our notable neighbors, from bees to bedbugs, caterpillars to butterflies, ladybugs to katydids, and so, so many more. With informative glee and striking illustrations, she identifies the many bugs we encounter every day and delves into their place in science, history, art, literature, culture, cuisine, and even warfare. You’ll learn so many cool facts about flies, beetles, moths, aphids, cicadas, bedbugs, crickets, cockroaches, and the other creeping, crawling, and flying critters that make our world go round. For every human, there are 1.4 billion insects in the world, playing a vital part of our ecosystem. A small percentage of bugs can be dangerous or spread disease, but the vast majority are our allies as indicators of environmental health, pollinators of our food, and a key part of the food web we rely on. Even the most wary readers will come away with a new perspective on the tiny creatures around them and a serious appreciation of just how important—and cool—bugs are.

January Zine Blast

When we said Year of Zines we meant it!

We publish new zines each and every month (you read that right!), and we want to make sure you don’t miss any that could help you change your life and the world around you. So every month this year, we are going to share a roundup of what’s been released, and maybe a few sneak peeks at what’s ahead in the zine pipeline. So let’s dive in!

Unfuck Your Tarot: Using the Cards for Growth and Overcoming Trauma by Dr. Faith G. Harper
Starting with Carl Jung’s enthusiasm for tarot’s archetypal power up through contemporary usage as a way to explore symbols and imagery in therapeutic settings, bestselling author Dr. Faith lays out helpful basics about the tarot and its connections to therapy work, alongside activities, prompts, and questions to consider in your own journey toward personal development and healing.

Transition Diaries by Finn Animal Bro
An intimate, reflective, and charming personal account of coming out and transitioning, defying transmasc invisibility and enforced cultural norms. Through alter-ego KweerKat, the author celebrates the simple pleasures of becoming, being, and loving one’s self; the satisfaction of weight-lifting; the psycho-spiritual process of transition; and many other smart and tender thoughts depicted through sweet cat illustrations. Remember that no one else can tell you how to be yourself!  

How to Pack for a Trip by Joe Biel and Elly Blue
Packing for a trip can be overwhelming! Trying to future-cast the weather, how much you’ll walk, whether or not you’re going to dump a coffee on yourself…it’s a lot. Longtime and frequent travelers Joe and Elly have made this fun and friendly little zine to help you break down packing and trip prep into manageable chunks, full of tips and tricks to make it all easier.

Criminal or Hero?: Relatable Crimes of Modern Times by Joe Biel and Elly Blue
From political actions to mistaken thefts, unfortunate miscommunications to gleeful mischief, the most sympathetic person in these stories is usually the one on the wrong side of the law, with choice details and a little art to match. Read to be entertained and consider what we consider criminality in a new light—and you, too, can argue with your friends about your faves and foes within!

To stay on top of the latest Microcosm news, including the zines digest delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter! Also often includes cute pet pics and good puns.

Shadow Work Exploration Deck

“What emotions do you actively try to avoid?”

“How do you lie to yourself on a daily basis?”

“What do you need to make peace with?”

Healing, growth, and self-acceptance come from seeing our flaws, fears, and mistakes with clarity and compassion. In this 52-card deck, Dr. Faith G. Harper—bestselling author of Unfuck Your Brain and Boundaries Conversation Deck—offers prompts to help you explore the parts of yourself that you usually try not to see. Work through your trauma, improve your relationships, seek true accountability, and embrace your whole authentic self. Use these cards for individual reflection, as a challenging group activity, as part of addiction recovery, or with your therapist to get up close and personal with your hidden side and see what important truths you uncover—and the freedom and joy of truly knowing who you are.

Anxiety Coping Skills Deck

“When you hear your anxiety speaking to you, whose voice is it?”

“What would a healthy relationship with your anxiety look and feel like?”

“Visualize a safe place.”

With these prompts and many others, Dr. Faith G. Harper—bestselling author of Unfuck Your Anxiety and Stress Coping Skills Deck—helps you reflect on your anxiety and learn how to cope with it. Many of us are familiar with the trembling, choking, panicky, or uneasy feelings that characterize anxiety, and they aren’t pleasant. Whether you have a diagnosed anxiety disorder or just want to better handle the anxiety-provoking situations that life throws at you, this 52-card deck will equip you with practical coping strategies and reflection questions to help you understand your anxiety and transform your relationship with it. Use these cards in therapy, in a group, for personal reflection, or whenever you need some help managing your anxious thoughts and feelings.

Unfuck Your Parenting: How to Raise Feminist, Compassionate, Responsible, and Generally Non-Shitty Kids

How do you raise your kids to be functional adults with big hearts? Young people need to learn to stand up against every kind of oppression, respect boundaries and consent, and gain self-compassion while also navigating money, friends, sex, and school. How can you prepare children and teens to find joy and stability as they cope with uncertainty, violence, and disaster, especially when your own coming-of-age lessons weren’t so thoughtfully taught?

Parents and mental-health professionals Dr. Faith G. Harper and Bonnie Scott have written a parenting guide for the 21st century that is a must-read for people with children of any age, from infancy to adulthood. Drawing from the authors’ experiences raising diverse, politically active young people, this book will help you bring up a new generation with tools to change the world for the better—all while maintaining your own separate identity and relationships…and without losing your mind.

An Urban Field Guide to the Plants, Trees, and Herbs in Your Path

Befriend the plants in your neighborhood.

Imagine going for a walk with a knowledgeable friend who points out all the plants you see and the coolest facts about them. This practical field guide is that friend, providing a delightful introduction to 58 of the plants, trees, weeds, and herbs you’ll encounter walking around most US cities. Accurate, charming line drawings accompany detailed yet accessible botanical information about each plant that helps you easily identify it in all seasons. You’ll also learn each plant’s backstory, including its relatives, origins, historical uses, and other fun facts. Getting to know the plants you meet every day will help you strengthen your sense of place, improve your foraging game, make new botanical and herbal friends, and marvel at the life that is all around us.

Trans-Galactic Bike Ride: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories of Transgender and Nonbinary Adventurers

2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist 

Take a ride with us as we explore a future where trans and nonbinary people are the heroes. In worlds where bicycle rides bring luck, a minotaur needs a bicycle, and werewolves stalk the post-apocalyptic landscape, nobody has time to question gender. Whatever your identity you’ll enjoy these stories that are both thought-provoking and fun adventures. Find out what the future could look like if we stopped putting people into boxes and instead empowered each other to reach for the stars.

Featuring original stories from Hugo, Nebula, and Lambda Literary Award-winning author Charlie Jane Anders, Elly Bangs, Kiera Jessica Bane, Ava Kelly, Juliet Kemp, Rafi Kleiman, Tucker Lieberman, Nathan Alling Long, Ether Nepenthes, Lane Fox Marcus Woodman, and Nebula-nominated M. Darusha Wehm, and an introduction to the new edition by Microcosm publisher Joe Biel. 

Our Sacred Cycle: A Workbook to Reclaim Your Period from PMS and PMDD

Learn to manage your PMS and PMDD

Your period doesn’t have to ruin your life. 

Sometimes our menstrual symptoms prevent us from showing up the way we want to, and there is not a lot of information about how to feel better. You may have had trouble finding resources that explain what’s happening in your body and mind. You may have even been disbelieved or blamed.

Our Sacred Cycle was created to help. Written by a therapist who specializes in premenstrual syndrome (PMS), premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), and other forms of hormone imbalance, this workbook offers accessible information and reflective exercises to help you understand the physiology of the menstrual cycle and how it affects you, harness your power, and live in harmony with your body. Whether you want to heal from patriarchal trauma or connect with yourself in a new way, this is the empowering, feminist resource you need to reclaim your cycle, take control of your symptoms, and achieve a transformative mind-body connection. You can feel better!