On Black Friday of 2024, Taylor Swift released “The Eras Tour Book” exclusively through Target. But is it a book? What’s the appeal? Who is the audience? Was it unfair to cut out indie bookstores from one of the biggest releases of the year? Jane Friedman of “The Hot Sheet” is back with Joe and Elly to give her thoughts on book-shaped objects.
(Note: This episode was recorded before the book actually released. Joe’s post-release comment— “Since even diehard fans were unhappy with the quality of the book, it’s hard to Bielieve the thinkpieces claiming that celebrities don’t need publishers anymore.”)
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!
This past week one of the platforms we sell on generously offered to “optimize” some of our product listings, unasked, and gave us the examples below of what they would do.
Our text is on the left, theirs is on the right.
It uh, didn’t go well.
Positive changes! Thought-provoking! Terrible SEO buzzwords!
Once upon a time, Justine Norton-Kertson corrupted young minds by teaching high school history, civics, and economics from a leftist perspective, then spent almost a decade as a community and union organizer. Nowadays, Justine continues working to corrupt the youth, primarily as a publisher, author, screenwriter, and podcaster. They founded Android Press and Solarpunk Magazine in 2022 and are editor-in-chief for both.
Most recently, Justine wrote Utopian Witch, a book of solarpunk rituals, spells, and practices for radical action towards a positive future.
Read on for our interview with Justine, where they talk about writing, working with us Microcosm folks, and what they’re working on next. Below that, check out an excerpt from the book!
What inspired you to write your book?
Utopian Witch is inspired by a deep sense of urgency and a profound belief in the power of community and individual action. I’ve always been passionate about environmentalism and social justice. I’ve also been a practitioner of witchcraft for decades, and early on was inspired by the feminist and social justice oriented craft taught by Starhawk. I began to see clear connections between the principles of solarpunk—a movement that envisions a sustainable and equitable future—and the transformative power of magick. I also noticed quite a few other folks in the solarpunk movement who practice some type of witchcraft or other new age spiritualities.
The idea that we can blend practical, real-world actions with spiritual practices to effect change is incredibly empowering. In solarpunk, I found a philosophy that not only addresses the ecological and social crises we face but does so with a spirit of radical hope and creativity. It’s about imagining and building a world that works for everyone and respects the Earth. In the same way, as a witch I’m familiar with the power of intention and ritual in shaping our reality. By combining solarpunk ideals with magickal practices, I saw an opportunity to create a resource that could inspire others to take action, both spiritually and practically. I wanted to provide tools and spells that could help people feel empowered to make a difference, to feel connected to a broader movement, and to envision a utopian future where humanity lives in harmony with nature.
Writing this book was my way of weaving together my passions for the environment, social justice, and magick into a cohesive guide that could help others on their journey. It’s about creating change on both a personal and collective level, using the power of witchcraft to fuel our dreams for a better world.
What was it like to publish with Microcosm?
Publishing with Microcosm has been such a great experience. This is my first time publishing a book from the author’s side of the table. I’m also editor-in-chief at Android Press, so I know how challenging the editorial process can sometimes be. But working with the folks at Microcosm has been so easy and enjoyable. My editors were incredibly helpful in so many ways, from working through the best way to structure the book to helping ensure the prose reads well and has the intended impact. I can only hope my future publishing experiences as an author are equally positive.
What was the submission/query process like for you?
I thought the submission/query process was easy and straightforward. The Microcosm website outlines really clearly how to submit a query. I was actually surprised how quickly I heard back with a positive response, because I know how long the query process can often take. Whether it’s with agents or publishers, they usually have no less than a mountain of queries and manuscript submissions to sift through.
What else have you written?
I actually spend a significant amount of my free time writing. I’m about 40,000 words into the first draft of a book about the influence of nerds and the evolution of nerd character tropes in horror movies. I also write a lot of fiction, actually more than I write nonfiction. I recently had a short story called “Rabbits, Rivers, and Prickly Pears,” published in World Weaver Press’s Solarpunk Creatures anthology and another short story called “Do Me Out” that was published by Utopia Science Fiction Magazine. That one’s an apocalyptic hopepunk story set in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge. I’ve written a couple novellas in the climate fiction and horror genres that are in various stages of revision or querying, and I’m currently co-authoring a climate fiction novel that blends surrealism, zombies, and solarpunk’s focus on DIY culture and climate solutions. But wait, that’s not all! I’ve also co-authored a horror script that is about to start being pitched to producers. Fingers crossed!
What are you currently reading?
I’ve definitely been on a horror kick lately. I’m currently reading an eldritch horror novella by P.L. McMillan called Sisters of the Crimson Vine, about a cult of nuns who grow their own grapes to make a mysteriously intoxicating wine. And they really hate the Catholic Church. I also just bought Paul Tremblay’s latest novel, Horror Movie, which just published this week. I haven’t started reading it yet because I’m trying to finish Sisters of the Crimson Vine first, but I’m really excited to dive into Tremblay’s latest.
What’s the best book you read in the last year?
Full disclosure, this is a book my publishing company, Android Press published, but even if that weren’t the case, this would still be my favorite book I’ve read this year. The book is a novella called “The Year of Return,” and it’s the debut by Ghanaian author Ivana Akotowaa Ofori. It’s a chilling yet hopeful ghost story about the ghosts of Africans who were captured and died during the Middle Passage who rise up from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean to seek various forms of revenge on the ancestors of their captors and killers.
What’s next for you? I recently finished the manuscript for a follow up to Utopian Witch that’s about using tarot cards as a community tool in the fight to build a better world. And I’m really excited about diving into the editorial process for that next book. I also recently helped start a production company called Nerd Horror Media (@nerdhorror on TikTok and Instagram), and am keeping my fingers crossed that we’re able to secure funding to produce our first independent horror film.
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Utopian Witchcalled “Radical Hope, Radical Politics, and Punk Magick”
Before we move on to solarpunk spiritual practices and spells, a look at the relationship between radical hope, radical politics, and magick deserves something of its own discussion. Over the years, one question I’ve heard with some frequency, particularly from those who are discovering solarpunk for the first time, is how a genre that’s all about utopia qualifies as punk. It’s a fair question. Afterall, aren’t punks rude people who listen to loud and angry music? Aren’t punks those crude and obnoxious anarchist kids sitting in the gutter with ukuleles and face tattoos, asking for change and leftovers? Even in science fiction literature and fantasy literature, -punk is all about resisting, rebelling, and fighting against corruption even if the odds are insurmountable.
So where’s the punk in utopia?
The first part of the answer to that question is, despite its utopian focus, solarpunk is no different than other -punk literary genres in that resistance and rebellion are foundational elements. In his 2014 article, “Solarpunk: Notes Toward a Manifesto,” Adam Flynn, one of the early writers and thinkers on the solarpunk genre, asserts that “There’s an oppositional quality to solarpunk, but it’s an opposition that begins with infrastructure as a form ofresistance.”28 This is evident in the genre’s focus on dismantling fossil fuel infrastructure in developing and expanding renewable energy infrastructure.
Seven years later, in the summer of 2021, “A Solarpunk Manifesto,” was published online by Regenerative Design, a permaculture training, consulting, and design firm. That article places the -punk in solarpunk within the well-established tradition of resistance. “The ‘punk’ in solarpunk,” it says, “has to do with rebellion, counterculture, post-capitalism, decolonialism and enthusiasm.” That statement reflects solarpunk’s well-established stress on the expected parts of punk: nonwestern cultures and radical, liberatory political theory and praxis.
The last couple words in the above quote—“decolonialism and enthusiasm”— point us in another direction, toward the idea that hope is punk as fuck and is capable of representing the -punk in solarpunk all on its own. In that vein, Regenerative Design’s solarpunk manifesto continues: “We are solarpunks because optimism has been taken away from us and we are trying to take it back,” and “we are solarpunks because the only other options are denial or despair.”
Since we live in a dystopian reality, we’re robbed of our optimism and often see hope as naivete. As a result, we’re engaged in a struggle to restore that hope, because without it, we can’t win. Put more simply: in a world full of despair, hope is an act of rebellion in its own right.
But the hope of solarpunk isn’t a naive hope. We aren’t talking about blind faith or uncritical Pollyanna optimism. Rather, the hope implicit in solarpunk is what University of Chicago philosopher Jonathan Lear termed “radical hope,” and what NYU research professor José Esteban Muñoz argued is a key component of queer utopianism.
So what is radical hope? It’s the kind of hope earned through oppression and struggle, and in the face of annihilation, at the hands of seemingly insurmountable force. It’s a hope that, faced with cultural or environmental collapse, enables us to keep moving forward day after day, to keep working toward a better world, to keep demanding utopia, and to keep resisting and struggling, even in the face of overwhelming odds.
While on the surface this may seem like naive optimism, it’s not. Instead, radical hope is the realization that if we’re to go on at all, then hope in resistance and radical system change is our only option.
That sure sounds punk as fuck to me.
Radical hope doesn’t only fit the punk ethos and drive the activist spirit. It’s also an extremely valuable tool for solarpunk witches and the practice of punk magick. There is, in fact, a direct relationship between radical hope and practicing magick.
At its most simple, magick involves four basic steps:
feeling a strong, guttural, and visceral desire for something,
generating the willpower to make it real,
using those feelings to build up a bunch of powerful energy, and
focusing that energy into a visualization related to the target of your magickal work.
For witches, radical hope provides a source for the guttural, visceral desire that is fuel, fire, and spark for our magickal spellwork. When your spiritual hope draws its strength from a lifetime of struggle and oppression against insurmountable odds—a reality for most witches—you’re more likely to have a deep well of strong feelings, desires, and righteous anger to draw upon when building energy and power for your spells.
And that is the punk magick of radical hope.
Justine Norton-Kertson lives in rural Oregon with their partner, puppies, cats, goats, and bunnies, where they enjoy gardening, kayaking, writing, and making short films. They can be found online on Instagram and TikTok @utopianwitchcraft, or at www.justinenortonkertson.com.
A harrowing, captivating firsthand history of the rise of the radical environmental movement the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Since 1997, the ELF has inflicted over $100 million in damages on entities they believe to be causing environmental destruction, mostly through brazen arson attacks on timber companies, ski resorts, and car dealerships.
Former ELF spokesperson Craig Rosebraugh charts the history and ideology of the ELF and explores its tactics, successes, and limitations. Rosebraugh examines the question of whether or not violence is justifiable, along with the short- and long-term political benefits and drawbacks of using violence. He also offers a primer on the tactics of state repression and strategies the US government uses to destroy activist movements.
Whatever your view of direct action or violence, Burning Rage of a Dying Planet is an illuminating read for anyone seeking to understand radical environmental movements and the government’s response to them.
This revised and updated edition has a foreword by Extinction Rebellion co-founder Tamsin Omond.
Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country(and beyond!)
Your name and pronouns? David (he/him) & Dara (she/her) Landry
Tell us a little bit about the store and your community. CLASS Bookstore is a Black-owned, family operated, indie bookstore based in Houston, TX. We are based in the Third Ward community and we like the following things about where we are: our proximity to two universities (Texas Southern University and University of Houston) and a high school (Jack Yates High School, the alma mater of George Floyd); the positive relationships that we have built with the members of the community; something good is always going on in Third Ward (Jazz Concerts at Emancipation Park; TSU Homecoming; UH Frontier Fiesta; Third Ward Block Party). We have a pet dog named Catcher, named after J.D. Salinger’s book, Catcher in the Rye.
What got you into bookselling? The thing that got us into indie bookselling was our desire to actively resist the so-called “decline” of the Black-owned bookstore in America. Books have always been important to us from a young age and we felt that it was a business that we felt passionate about doing. Once we had talked to a few Black-owned bookstores that had been around for awhile and gain some perspective, we decided to make it happen.
How did you choose your store’s name? The reasons why we named our store CLASS Bookstore are the following: it’s easy to write and remember; the word “CLASS” elicits the idea of literacy, social strata, and how one should view reading all at once. We capitalize the word CLASS so that it will stand out, very much like the late rapper MF DOOM capitalized his name.
What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people? We are the bookstore that loves streetwear! We consider ourselves part of the sneaker and streetwear community and we love to dress fly and step out for events. We also incorporate elements from the streetwear and sneaker community in everything that we do, from the presentation of our physical space, to the merch that we release in store.
What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store? Every first Sunday of the month, we have a growing contingent of people who love poetry and spoken word who come to the store and share their work with each other and have been doing so every month for the past year or so. It is a safe space for people of all types to come to the shop and either spectate or participate. This is totally community organized and CLASS Bookstore just provides the physical space to do the event. Another way that our community comes through and supports us is our monthly event on first Saturdays called “Ladies First Saturdays”, where from 12p – 3p CST, women can come to CLASS Bookstore and have tea, talk, or just be. We have music playing according to a pre-selected theme and we sometimes even have speakers come through and talk on a variety of topics, such as mental health, metaphysics, and naturopathy.
How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves and support you? People can shop with us on our website, and if they can’t find what they are looking for on our website, they can shop with us through our Bookshop affiliate link.
Anything else you’d like to share? Thank you so much, Microcosm! We can’t wait to visit you all in person!
Be sure to follow CLASS Bookstore on their Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Tiktok, and check back in a few weeks for their podcast episode!
Freedom from stress, anxiety, worry, fear, and suffering
Step back from the ups and downs of life and practice presence. You can find contentment in the here and now and discover profound freedom from stress and anxiety within this 31-day interactive workbook and planner. Instead of constantly chasing manifestations, shed your worries and fears and eliminate the need for external changes.
Reflect and ground yourself in the moment in these highly visual, calming pages. The School of Life Design, creators of Monthly Manifestation Manual and Monthly Magickal Record, show you in these pages that presence is key to attracting what you desire and finding true peace, love, and happiness. Embrace the infinite Now and see that life already is the way you want it to be. When you feel life is already perfect, it has no choice but to show you evidence of that truth.
Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country(and beyond!)
For April, we’re featuring King’s Co-op Bookstore, in Halifax!
King’s is a kickass store, which they cheekily claim is “Canada’s hardest to find indie bookstore.” It’s Halifax’s only co-op bookshop, and they’re definitely good friends to the Microcosm community.
Check out our interview with Paul below!
Your name and pronouns? Paul MacKay, he/him
Tell us a little bit about the store and your community! Our store was primarily created in 2006 by students who needed an easy and affordable place to buy their coursebook texts. The Foundation Year Programme at the University of King’s College is about 45 books in very specific editions and translations and it could be incredibly hard to find exactly what you needed. A group of students got together and found a free spot on campus which is quite small but special shelves were created that allowed the bookshelves to open and close and lock up so that common areas could still be usable for the bookstore. (This shows an old video showing how it works, I’ve since updated the fixtures and it looks a lot better)
We’re pretty hard to find at first, being in the basement of a building on campus, so I leaned into it and describe us as Canada’s Hardest to Find Bookstore since even google maps will only put you on campus but not right at the store. Since we’re owned by the students we’re not like usual university bookstores and we’re also a regular indie bookstore with fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, etc. We’re also totally open to the public and do special orders all the time either in store or on our website where we promote ourselves as a friendly and easy amazon alternative. We like to engage with things we think are important in the community and we like to champion books and reading, and work hard to bring authors to town who people might not usually have the chance to see.
Our standing in the community grew a lot as word of mouth got out of what we were doing during covid. Since the university closed we had to stay closed too, but I would run books outside for people and also delivered books on my bike. People really liked that idea and also were looking for ways to support local since so many businesses were struggling. Between that and a more personal approach to social media we’ve really become more of a community bookstore which was always my goal when I took over this place (about 6 years ago)
How did you choose your store’s name? The store name was already chosen by the time I took over the store. I do appreciate it’s specificity, King’s co-op bookstore, a co-op bookstore at King’s. Does what it says on the tin.
What got you into bookselling? This was never something I ever really intended to do. I’ve always loved books and would often cut classes in school to go hang out at the bookstore and learn things I cared about, but my real career plan was to be a musician and music professor. I picked up the guitar when I was around 18 and really took to it, earning a double major degree in music and psychology shortly after, and then went for more schooling in jazz guitar performance. That was my sole reason for being for years and it was all I cared about but eventually the strain and overuse of my arm caused repetitive strain injury that meant I had to quit playing. When I take to something I get kind of obsessive, so I was practising from about 8am to 10pm every day which my body just kind of revolted against.
I moved back home and needed to get a job quickly so I applied at the same chain bookstore i used to hang out at when I cut classes. I got hired there and would shelve books with my one good arm. I got promoted to being one of the managers of that store after a few years and during that time I met a lot of great people who introduced me to amazing books that really changed my life and that I developed a real passion for books that has only grown over the years
What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people? I think the most surprising thing about our store is how we fold up and close down every day like we’re a pop-up shop every day. As far as I know we’re the only bookstore in the world like it, and it’s always something I show people when authors come to visit. I wasn’t around at the time the bookstore was started but I do love that it was a very DIY project with a sort of “whatever, we’ll do it ourselves” punk attitude. Bookselling is getting harder and hard nowadays and there’s a huge financial barrier to opening a bookstore or even buying one that’s for sale, so I take pride in what we’ve been able to accomplish in such a weird space without much in the way of money
What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store? We recently started a program with Books Beyond Bars which is a local group that works to get books to inmates in the women’s prisons here. I asked them to share their book requests with me and I put them on our website with a promo code so people can buy the books to support the program at a 20% discount.
So far we’ve managed to get them close to 100 books and we’re all really happy about it. The people supporting the program get to pay less, we help give the prisoners books they actually want to read, and the money stays the community instead of going you know where. You never know how a certain initiative will land with people and I’ve been really happy with the response this has gotten.
Outside of that, I manage all the social media for the store and people taking the time to make posts about how much they like the store or recommending us to others is always nice. They absolutely don’t need to do anything like that so if they feel the desire to do something like that you know they mean it 🙂
What are two books you can’t wait for people to read, or your current favorite handsells? I’m really stoked for the new Hanif Abdurraqib book There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension. I read an advanced copy of it and like everything he does it’s just amazing. I’m not a big sports fan at all and even I was taking breaks from reading it to watch slam dunk contents from like 30 years ago because the way he writes about them is so incredible.
Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is easily one of my favourite fiction books in the last year too. It’s his first novel after some poetry collections, and his writing is just beautiful. Another one that I just devoured and want everybody to read.
How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves? Our website kingsbookstore.ca has everything on it that we have in store and we offer a flat $5 fee for shipping whether it’s 1 book or 20 books. we can also order in anything we don’t currently have also, so instead of going to the evil A they can just go to our website instead 🙂
(Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance. – James Baldwin)
Anything else you want to share? I won the contest for Danny Caine’s How to Resist Amazon and Why a while back which was great. I sold tons of them and also left copies at busy places in the city for people to find. Danny mentions us in the book which was a nice surprise when I was first reading it 🙂
Be sure to follow King’s Co-Op on their socials, and check back in a few weeks for their podcast episode!
This A-to-Z treasury of stories and poems features plants of Africa and the wider Caribbean region. With each entry, plants become much more than material for humans to use. They serve as links to the orisha deities of African diasporic religions. They speak for themselves, forming alliances with people and animals. They serve as points of connection between the many generations of people who share their stories.
In The Encyclopedia of Rootical Folklore, botanical folklorist Natty Mark Samuels keeps the oral tradition of plant lore thriving in the present day. The stories sometimes involve characters of his invention (as well as age-old folklore staples like Anansi) and invoke contemporary situations, from bad bosses to mental health struggles. A baobab tree misses his old friend Birago Diop, a poet of the Négritude movement. Basil comes to the rescue for a woman who’s had a rough day. On moonlit evenings in a square in Kingston, kids gather round a Rasta elder to hear tales of dates, guava, and the orishas linked to each plant.
The 88 entries, each accompanied by botanical information, blend age-old lore and modern sensibility to bring the plants of Africa and the Caribbean to life. Includes a glossary, illustrations, multilingual species index, and references.
In Texas in the early 1900s, a little chalk drawing started to appear on boxcars: a minimalist sketch of a figure with a 10-gallon hat, smoking a pipe, signed “Bozo Texino.” This famous railroad tag defied the human lifespan, appearing over 100,000 times over 90 years. Who was Bozo Texino? Artist and filmmaker Bill Daniel set out to solve the mystery of the man behind the pipe and hat. It turned into a 25-year quest, taking Daniel on a tour of railyards and graffiti throughout the US. The result was the documentary Who is Bozo Texino? and the book Mostly True—a chronicle of modern-day hobos, rail workers, and a forgotten outsider subculture. Obscure railroad nostalgia, freight-riding stories, interviews with hobos and boxcar artists, historical oddities, and tons of photos of modern-day boxcar tags are all presented in the guise of a vintage rail fanzine.
The book spotlights beloved railroad artists Matokie Slaughter (Margaret Kilgallen), Colossus of Roads (Russell Butler), Herby (Herbert Meyer), Mind Detergent (Big Will), Twist (Barry McGee), and others, including an interview with itinerant sign painter Heidi Tullman. Contributing writers, researchers, photographers and artists include: John Held Jr., Joey Alone, Duke Riley, Old Broads, Daniel Leen, Eden Batki, Andy Dreamingwolf, North Bank Fred, Michele Lockwood, The Historical Graffiti Society, Susan Phillips, Walt Curtis, Beau Patrick Coulon, O. Winston Link, Murray Hammond, Brad Wescott, Marisa Evans, Roxy Gordon, and many, many others.
The book’s design team was Rich McIsaac, Gary Fogelson, Phil Lubliner, Jordan Swartz, and Vald Nahitchevansky.
