Do Not Pet

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. Gerta Oparaku Egy is an Albanian artist residing in Springfield, Oregon. She studied Set and Costume Design in the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana, Albania. She worked as a costume designer in film and theater, storyboard artist, and illustrator. From her work in film, she developed an interest in writing and drawing her own stories. She is the author and illustrator of several comics and illustrated stories.