Additional information
by Joe Biel (Author), Elly Blue (Author), Andrew Coltrin (Illustrator)
Author Biography
Joe Biel is a self-made autistic publisher and filmmaker who draws origins, inspiration, and methods from punk rock to sell millions of books. Biel is the founder and CEO of Microcosm Publishing, Publishers Weekly's #1 fastest-growing publisher of 2022 and #3 in 2023/2024, and WorkingLit, the software responsible for Microcosm's aforementioned success--now available for other publishers. Biel has been featured in Time, Esquire, Art of Autism, Reading Glasses, Bulletproof Radio, Spectator (Japan), G33K (Korea), and Maximum Rocknroll, as well as NPR and PBS. Biel is the author of A People's Guide to Publishing, Autism Relationships Handbook, Unfuck Your Business, Enduring Legacy of Portland's Black Panthers, and dozens more. Biel is the director of five feature films and hundreds of short films, including Aftermass: Bicycling in a Post-Critical Mass Portland, $100 & a T-Shirt, and the Groundswell series. Biel lives in Portland, OR. 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. Andrew Coltrin is a writer, comics artist, and disabilities advocate when not at the day job as a paraeducator for a large urban school district. For decades Andrew thought he was just weird, anxious and unexplainably broken until the DSM finally had an update that caught up with lived experience. Andrew was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 37, and informally diagnosed with ADHD by his brother in 2023 ("your DHD is Advanced"). Andrew's previous work include the glossary zine A is for Autistic, and the zine Ability: Emerging from the Social Constraints on Neurodivergence and Disability. Andrew has also led staff trainings about neurodiversity and has spoken on panels at the Interdisciplinary Autism Research Festival (2021) and the Tucson Zine Fest (2023).
