Bookstore Solidarity Project: Charlie’s Queer Books (A People’s Guide to Publishing)

In 2013, we predicted that the bookstore model would shift to more specialized indie stores that offered a narrower offering around their own curated interests and values, with more books face-out and unabashedly clear messaging about who the store is and is not for. And here are we are in 2024, with Charlie’s Queer Books of Seattle, Washington offering a perfect example. This week on the pod, we interview Charlie, who has awesome stories about the importance of creating a safer space to demonstrate that there are, in fact, happy queer people.

Check out our other interview with Charlie here.

Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!

Spooky pink and yellow text over black and gray industrial background.

Radical Care for Physical and Mental Health

In a world of systems that aim to keep us feeling helpless, sick, and disconnected from our bodies and emotions, it’s crucial to learn how to care for ourselves—and each other. From reproductive freedom to recruiting herbal allies, from supporting your own mental health to offering support to loved ones, life is full of opportunities to take back our agency and see ourselves as collaborators in healing.

To celebrate the release of new zine How to Get Your Periodhere’s a collection of works that embrace a radical understanding of “self care” as an empowering ethic for healthier individuals and communities.

How to Get Your Period, by Anonymous Healthcare Worker 

In 1971, as part of their work with their feminist reproductive collective, Lorraine Rothman and Carol Downer invented menstrual extraction (ME), a suction process to pass the entire period all at once, which has the side effect of ending any undetected early pregnancy. An underground network of providers has kept ME alive ever since, and now, in a post-Roe era, the demand is surging. Written by an anonymous medical professional, this book provides a short history of ME and detailed instructions and diagrams explaining how to safely and effectively perform a manual exam, use a speculum, assemble a Del-Em kit, and complete a menstrual extraction procedure. You’ll also learn when not to perform ME and find an overview of other safe and effective options for bringing about menstruation or ending a pregnancy in the first trimester. In addition to heralding the incredible discovery of these historical heroes and affirming the need for abortion rights, this book offers menstrual extraction as a method to understand and protect our own bodies, choices, and reproductive rights even as they are under attack.

Alive With Vigor! Surviving Your Adventurous Lifestyle, edited by Robert Earl Sutter III

Alive With Vigor! compiles stories of surviving—and thriving—from a wide spectrum of contributors. Deeply personal essays recount matters of preventative health care, the hard decisions we each have to make, Do It Yourself health care, and how to deal with extracting health care from government/corporate health care systems. Alive With Vigor! has a special focus on queer, youth, and transgender people, recognizing that everyone has different health care needs. Finally a how to book where you can put the advice directly to use in your life!

Reclaiming Our Ancient Wisdom: Herbal Abortion Procedure and Practice for Midwives and Herbalists, by Catherine Marie Jeunet 

A guide for practiced herbalists and midwives to better serve their communities with herbal abortion options. Beautifully illustrated with botanical drawings from Gerard’s Herbal and other early texts. The time is now for us to learn from forgotten knowledge and keep ourselves and the people around us healthy and fully in charge of their own reproductive health and rights. 

Stressed & Overwhelmed: Good Habits for the Exhausted Overachiever,
by Elly Blue

If you’re the sort of person who takes on every project and responsibility until suddenly it’s one thing too many and you get completely burnt out and drop everything and start the cycle again from scratch … this zine is for you. Includes hard-won pointers on how to train yourself to have more sustainable work habits (using tricks from dog training!), shore up your professional boundaries, and get more organized so you can have a better handle on all the things you are very likely to continue taking on. Stress and overwhelm are tough to live with every day, and the go-getters of the world could use to take better care of ourselves and have more fun.

Hot Pants: Do It Yourself Gynecology, by Isabelle Gauthier & Lisa Vinebaum

A thorough and classic examination on tried and true herbal treatments for common gynecological problems, as well as great basic sexual health info for anyone with a uterus. It begins, “Patriarchy sucks. It’s robbed us of our autonomy and much of our history. We believe it’s integral for women to be aware an in control of our own bodies.” Diagrams and herbal remedies teach you how to diagnose and heal many basic problems from bladder infections to inducing your period to ease cramps to even dealing with pregnancy. Learn herbal remedies to ease every stage of the menstrual cycle. There’s references to further reading, descriptions of herbs, and even a section on aphrodisiacs. The sections include: Body Mapping (in brief), About Menstruation, Love in the Age of Aids, 35 years of fertility, STDs and Other Aliens, The Ovaries and the Uterus, Aphrodisiacs, How to Prepare and Use Herbs, Picking Your Own Herbs, Herbal Properties and Dosages, Interesting Reading, Useful Addresses. This book deserves to sit next to your copy of Our Bodies, Our Selves.

Support: Feminist Relationship Tools to Heal Yourself and End Rape Culture, by Cindy Crabb

Support encourages everyone to take a step back, listen, think, and talk about sex, consent, violence, and abuse. If you or someone you know have ever been assaulted or victimized, how to be an ally can be confusing. These words and the connection they offer can help. With ideas and encouragement to help yourself and others cope with, prevent, and end sexual violence and abuse, this collection of personal experiences, advice, guest articles, and comic excerpts wants to help.

Self-Compassion: Be Kind to Yourself Instead of Striving for Bullshit “Self-Esteem,” by Dr. Faith G. Harper

For decades, the U.S. has been obsessed with “self-esteem” or rather with our lack of it. But self-esteem isn’t actually that great, and getting all puffed up about yourself isn’t exactly a recipe for the good life. How about self-compassion instead? Bestseller Dr. Faith explains the difference between the two and offers some helpful exercises in developing more compassion for yourself. It’s actually very different, she explains, than letting yourself off the hook for your bullshit. It’s more helpful to accept that you’re human so that you can learn and grow rather than push aside your problems or wallow in your mistakes. Also, kindness to yourself helps you be more kind to other people as well. Everyone wins!


Fireweed #1: A Zine of Grassroots Radical Herbalism and Wild Foods Connecting With Kids and Family Life, by Jess Krueger 

Fireweed, as the full title implies, is all about introducing your kids to plants. It’s about teaching young children the joy of gathering edibles, and making them into candies, teas, jellies, or even medicines. There’s tips for going on plant walks, and suggestions for good introductory plants like ginger, mint, and marshmallow. There are recipes for prickly pear crisp, catnip tea, and simple fermented herbal infusions. The authors conduct a couple interviews with parents about their experiences sharing plants with their children. This zine is really inspiring.  

Self As Other: Reflections on Self-Care, by  Corina Dross &  CrimethInc

In activist circles and elsewhere, it has become commonplace to speak of self-care, taking for granted that the meaning of this expression is self-evident. But “self” and “care” are not static or monolithic; nor is “health.” How has this discourse been colonized by capitalist values? How could we expand our notion of care to encompass a transformative practice?

Following “For All We Care,” analyzing the contradictory currents within the category of care, Crimethinc presents “Self as Other,” combining that text with three more essays in which individuals recount their personal struggles with the concept and practice of care.

Shop the list for even more of our radical self-care titles, or check out some packs. Keep taking care of each other!

What Does a Publisher Need to Distribute Books? (A People’s Guide to Publishing)

Most small presses use a trade distributor. What do they do? What are the components of a distributor’s function? Can you do them yourself? What does a distributor do? What does a distributor look for? This week we take a look at these things and more, as we unpack distribution! (Metaphorically, although our kickass warehouse team unpacks distribution literally almost every day.)

Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!

Bookstore Solidarity Project: Alibi Bookshop of Vallejo, CA (A People’s Guide to Publishing)

Nestled deep in the heart between San Francisco and Sacramento lives the Alibi Bookshop! This week, in the latest of “What makes all of these cool indie bookstores tick?” we present to you, their proprietor, Karen, to unpack what publishers could do better to interface with stores like hers and the funniest things that happen when you bring back the 90s.

You can check out the other interview we did with Karen on the blog here.

Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!

Interview with Bob Suren, author of Weird Music That Goes On Forever

Behind the scenes of Bob’s quest to bring two outsider genres together at last

Bob Suren’s new book, Weird Music That Goes On Forever: A Punk’s Guide to Loving Jazz is out now, with art by Brian Walsby and forewords from Lucky Lehrer and Paul Mahern. We chatted with Bob about the writing and publication of the book and the punk-to-jazz pipeline.

Microcosm Publishing: What inspired you to write your book?

Bob Suren: An unsatisfactory experience at a jazz club. When I first got into punk rock as a teenager, some more seasoned punks taught me about how punk rock works. They loaned me records and zines and made mix tapes and invited me to shows. The few jazz clubs I have been to have not been particularly welcoming. After a visit to some snobby club, I thought, jazz isn’t supposed to be like that. Really, nothing should be like that. But jazz was the original outsider music. Granted, I wasn’t kicking around when it was but it sure seems dusty and aloof now. I belong to several jazz groups online, to gather knowledge and read opinions, and there’s very little sense of humor in the groups. There is a lot of what the kids call “gatekeeping” and a lot of jazz experts flexing their credentials. Of course, there’s quite a bit of that now in punk, too, and I plead a little guilty. Anyhow, after being given the third-class treatment at a jazz club, I got the idea to write a book that compares jazz to punk and I started writing it the minute I got home. I sent Microcosm the first thousand words or so that very night.

MCP: What was it like to publish with Microcosm?

BS: This is my second book with Microcosm. I hear that for your seventh they give you a monogrammed smoking jacket. The first book I edited in person with Joe, side by side at his desk in Portland over five or six days. It was very easy and smooth and the finished product was not much different than the rough draft. For this book, I worked remotely by email with Olivia and there were a lot more things to debate and fix in the edit. I think we did three front to back edits over a period of maybe three months. I was starting to get sick of looking at the thing but Olivia made some good suggestions and she caught a few fact errors in her cross-research which made for a better book. And a much longer book. I used to be skeptical of the editing process but I now realize that a second set of eyes is a big help

MCP: What was the submission/query process like for you?

BS: Since I already had a relationship with Microcosm, it was very easy and informal. I sent Joe a three sentence pitch and the first thousand or so words as soon as I wrote them. Maybe like 10 minutes after I wrote them. Joe’s original response was that it might make a good zine. He told me to keep it around 36 pages. I didn’t think I could do the subject any justice at 36 pages so I said, “I’m just going to write it the way it needs to be and send it when I feel like it’s finished,” which is a very fucking jazz approach to writing. At one point, I thought it was going to top out short, at around 100 pages. But I keep finding great info. I couldn’t believe it when the final page count was 256. 

MCP: What else have you written?

BS: In 2015 Microcosm published Crate Digger: An Obsession with Punk Records, my memoir of 30 years in punk rock as a fan, a collector, a band member, a record label, a store, a distro, a prolific t-shirt bootlegger, basset hound owner, and more. 

MCP: What are you currently reading? 

BS: I read a lot of nonfiction. I like pop science books like Mary Roach and Oliver Sacks. I love memoirs. Some of the best memoirs I have read were by Meat Loaf, Paul Stanley, Geezer Butler, John Stamos, Rob Lowe, Chrissie Hynde, Belinda Carslie, Tina Fey, Molly Shannon, and a not famous guy from Texas named David Crabb wrote wrote something very funny called Bad Kid. I have given two copies of Bad Kid as gifts. Check it out. I have been dipping into non-fiction, too. I think America’s best non-fiction writer is a guy from Portland named Willy Vlautin. I have read every Willy Vlautin book and I have written him fan mail, just like the fan mail I used to send Kevin Seconds. Except I didn’t ask Willy Vlautin for free stickers.

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

BS: Willy Vlautin’s latest book, The Night Always Comes. Also a novel called The Lemon, written by three people under the pseudonym S.E. Boyd.

MCP: What’s next for you? 

BS: Maybe I will get another idea for a book and maybe I won’t. I have no idea. Once I get the inspiration, I work fast. Crate Digger was written over maybe six weeks. Weird Music took me maybe ten weeks to write. I just need a spark. 

Check out Weird Music That Goes On Forever—not many books out there get a handwritten blurb from King Buzzo.

Bob Suren spent decades as a professional punk rocker, playing in bands, releasing records, running a store and a distribution company, writing for zines, shooting photos, and booking shows. Now he’s kind of into jazz. Read another interview with Bob on our blog.

How does a book publisher deal with failure? (A People’s Guide to Publishing)

Not everything that you do will be a great success. It’s a matter of how we navigate these less-than-graceful moments that determine our ability to respond and move on with being reactive. This week on the pod, E & J walk through some of their own failures and how they could have handled them better as well as what they handled well. You are forever judged by the last thing that you’ve done, so make it count!

Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!

Microcosm is hiring a Receiver/Shipper in Portland!

piles and piles of boxes in a parking lot

Microcosm is hiring a receiving and fulfillment coordinator in Portland, Oregon

We are seeking a full-time worker to join our growing team at our location in Portland, Oregon. This is primarily a receiving and inventory position, helping make sure our systems are organized and our shelves are well-stocked. Our receiving staff is cross-trained in shipping, helping people get their books and be happy.

Microcosm is an independent book publisher founded in 1996 and based in Portland, Oregon and Cleveland, Ohio. We publish and distribute books, zines, decks and other materials that advance our mission of helping readers change their lives and world. In 2022, Publishers Weekly ranked us the Fastest Growing Publisher, and we also made the list in 2023 at number 3. We are excited to keep growing at a more reasonable pace. Come grow with us! 

Hours: This is a full-time position (40 hours per week) with daytime work hours. Shifts are Monday-Friday, roughly 9-5 (8-4 or 10-6 are also doable).

Location: All shifts take place on-site at our office in the Eliot neighborhood of inner North Portland

Experience: This is an entry-level or early career position. No prior warehouse experience is needed—we are happy to train the right person. This may not be an ideal first job, but it would be a great second or third job. Candidates with previous warehouse or book industry experience, or who are changing careers, will be gladly considered, but the key things we are looking for are ability to do the work plus willingness to work hard, learn, be part of a team, pay attention to details, and think critically about systems.

Job duties

Core duties will include:

  • Checking, accepting, and processing shipments of books and other inventory
  • Receiving new inventory into our database, including ISBNs, quantities, expenses, cover images, and location
  • Calculating expenses and checking for accounting errors
  • Reporting damages to the distributor
  • Shelving items quickly, accurately, and without damaging books
  • Finding items that shippers can’t locate
  • Shelf reading and inventory audits
  • Light production work including making buttons and cutting patches
  • Process incoming mail
  • Pull, pack, and ship books to customers
  • Miscellaneous office duties and cleaning

The ideal candidate will have the ability to:

  • Lift 30-40 pound boxes
  • Spend an 8-hour shift mostly on your feet
  • Climb step ladders
  • Wear a mask when required and observe our health and safety policies
  • Quickly and accurately alphabetize
  • Read small print and identify discrepancies (e.g., two books with the same title)
  • Be motivated by accuracy and efficiency
  • Show up prepared and work hard for your whole shift
  • Work independently once trained
  • Maintain an organized workstation and contribute to keeping shared areas tidy
  • Observe all safety procedures
  • Handle materials on topics that may be sensitive to some, including trauma, abuse, addiction, non-christian religions, various marginalized identities, human anatomy, drugs, sexual instruction, erotica, politics, and dad jokes
  • Work collaboratively to come up with improved systems and workflows 
  • Work within our systems while also speaking up when needed, with an “us against the problem” attitude. Open communication is key!

Pay and benefits:

Starting wage is $17-18.75 per hour, depending on experience. Wage and responsibilities will be re-evaluated after 30, 60, and 90 days. 

Benefits include:

  • All company profits are distributed to staff in the form of profit-sharing
  • Health insurance after trial period
  • Paid time off after trial period
  • Employee ownership program after five years
  • Transparent compensation and clear metrics for advancement
  • Meaningful work at a growing company 

Apply by March 21, 2024 by completing this application. No resume or cover letter is necessary. 

Please do not contact us about your application—we will respond to all applicants by April 8, 2024.

Bookstore Solidarity Project: An Interview with Charlie Hunts, owner of Charlie’s Queer Books in Seattle, WA

Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country.

For March, we’re featuring Charlie’s Queer Books, in Seattle, Washington! Charlie’s isn’t the first queer bookstore in Seattle, but it is the first in 20 years. They opened last year, with a focus on diversity and intersectionality in their titles.

Your name and pronouns?
Charlie Hunts (He/him)

Tell us a little bit about the store and your community!
We began as a magic disco-tiled book cart doing pop-ups and then we opened our brick and mortar home in Nov 2023. Our shop is in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. It’s a funky part of town that’s home to a massive bridge troll sculpture, a rocket, former home to a famous clown, and self-proclaimed “Center of the Universe,” so where better to open a queer bookstore? The Seattle/Tacoma area has the third-highest percentage of LGBTQ+ people among the nation’s 15 largest metros only behind San Francisco/Oakland and Boston/Cambridge, so this city was eager to have a “third place” other than nightlife to hang out at.

What got you into bookselling?
I was a college dropout Harley Davidson mechanic who happened to get in a motorcycle accident *shocker* that left me bed-bound for more than a year. In that time, I fell in love with reading! I went back to school as an English major, started my career in publishing, and then pivoted to marketing for different industries. With the onslaught of book bans, anti-LGBTQ legislation, and the need in the market for queer spaces, I felt like the time was right to return to books.

What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people?
The Seattle Times said we have the best bookstore bathroom in the city. Seriously.

What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store?
In the short time we’ve been open we’ve had everything from a couple’s first kiss under our mistletoe, to a wife and wife who gifted each other the same book, both purchased here. SO gay, ha. We have a great mix of tourists, locals in the neighborhood, and folks who seek us out. We have our upstairs dedicated to community hangs with tables, reading nooks, and a meeting space. They have shown up big time at our events too.

What are two books you can’t wait for people to read, or your current favorite handsells?
Love After the End and Gearbreakers. Our top-selling non-book item is the Ronald Reagan’s Grave is a Gender Neutral Bathroom sticker.

How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves?
charliesqueerbooks.com

Be sure to follow Charlie’s Queer Books on Tiktok, Facebook, and Instagram, and check back in a few weeks for their podcast episode!

You can read our other Bookstore Solidarity Project posts here!
And click here to get a copy of How to Protect Bookstores and Why.


Bikes, the Universe, and Everything is almost here!

Ever gotten lost in a book? Or on your bicycle? Or both at once, by falling through a portal on the page? Anything is possible in this collection of fifteen very short stories and one comic. Ranging from science fiction to fantasy and traveling in time from a reimagined past to the heat death of the universe, these stories combine the personal and popular power of spokes and words. Meet a young graduate who rides off to become a velo-archivist, a bookstore owner who must learn to bike after cars are banned, a daredevil messenger who makes a harrowing textbook delivery run, a talented scribe who creates a braille bicycle guide, and many more adventurous souls in disparate realities, united by their love for spinning wheels and the written word.


Inside you’ll find 15 new short stories and one comic about bikes, books, feminism, and the universe.

There are just two days left to fund Bikes, the Universe, and Everything on Kickstarter! Rewards include stickers, shirts, books, zines, and more. Plus, if you’re feeling generous, you can add on a tip that will be evenly distributed among the authors.

The complete collection.
Bikes, History, and Everything reward tier.
A book and a sticker!


Want to learn more about the brilliant authors of the short stories in the collection?
Scroll through the project updates to see our interviews with some of the contributors to this edition!



Why Does Publishing Create So Much Waste (and what can we do)? (A People’s Guide to Publishing)

Largely due to consumer preference and obstinate legacy behaviors, the world of book publishing still operates on the same model from the 1800s. Mass production creates overprinting, and the ship and return model creates damaged books that don’t have anywhere to go. This week, we take a look at how that happened and what publishers can do about it!

Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!