Beyond the Bookshelf

Larry Law is an artist and Executive Director of the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association. With a passion for art, literature and community, he champions independent bookstores across the Midwest. His art is often colorful, humorous and advocates for issues he is passionate about. When he's not designing things for bookstores he's with his wife, daughter and two cats in the suburbs of Chicago. You can follow him on Instagram: @wormwood and purchase his art through Microcosm Publishing. Elly Blue is a co-owner and the vice president of Microcosm Publishing, and the co-host of the People's Guide to Publishing podcast. Her books include Everyday Bicycling and Bikenomics, and she is the editor of the annual Bikes in Space anthology of feminist bicycle science fiction. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her partner, their dog, and a small fleet of cargo bicycles. Joe Biel is a self-made life-long-learner and autistic publisher who draws origins, inspiration, and methods from punk rock to sell millions of books. Biel is the founder and CEO of Microcosm Publishing, a Publishers Weekly's fastest-growing publisher from 2022-2024, and WorkingLit, the software responsible for Microcosm's aforementioned success--now available for other publishers. Biel serves as a board director of the Independent Book Publishers Association, and has been featured in Time, Esquire, Forbes, Bulletproof Radio, Spectator (Japan), G33K (Korea), as well as NPR and PBS. Biel is the author of A People's Guide to Publishing (and cohost of the podcast by the same name), Autism Relationships Handbook, Unfuck Your Business, Enduring Legacy of Portland's Black Panthers, and dozens more. Biel is the director of five feature films, including Aftermass: Bicycling in a Post-Critical Mass Portland, $100 & a T-Shirt, and hundreds of short films. Biel writes a publishing substack and lives in Portland, OR.