(We've All Got) Baggage: Envisioning an Ideal Community

by Dawson Barrett, Joe Biel, Joseph E. Green, Chey Winters, Dr. Faith G. Harper, Cynthia Marts, Rob Morton, Set Sytes, Nathan Lee Thomas, River Katz, and Lisa Wilde If Microcosm was a person, they'd be in their early twenties, chock full of the messy connotations that this era of self-awareness and discovery comes with. But Microcosm isn't just one person, it's a people, a collective consciousness of thousands, of all identities, ages, and experiences, reading and making books and zines meant to change their world. After starting in milk-crates and basements, we think that's amazing. Shit gets complicated, but it stays cool. We all carry our "baggage" around with us, and sometimes it gets in the way. It's complicated, and we let it be, all part of this experience of human-ing. Now we're letting you in on it too. This anthology of experience is a literary riffling through the dirty laundry and keepsake boxes of the Microcosm machine, from the creators, artists, and staff that get things made to the fans that keep it all going. Their experiences, feelings, pains, and purposes. Because how can we move forward to create the world we want, if we're still weighed down by the same baggage from our past? We've all got baggage. Let's talk about it.