Launched in 1997, Picture of the Day is the longest running website of its kind–an unpredictable mix of photography, creative non-fiction, poetry, and citizen journalism rooted in the Web’s early idealism as an anti-commercial space where information was meant to be free and idiosyncratic voices could find an outlet liberated from market pressures. Much has changed in the online landscape but PoD has refused to keep pace. No ads, no gimmicks, and no single reductive idea guiding it, it’s where Web v.1 lives in all its homespun glory.
Picture of the Day Books
I started my career as a self-publisher with comics and ‘zines I made in high school, then I applied that DIY ethic to the internet when it came along, thrilling to the ability to instantly share work with a global audience. But even as an early adopter, I still champion the value of tangible artifacts and have come full circle with a growing line of print editions. Computer chips are made of silicon, an element found in every rock. Let these books be a reminder that paper beats rock. Click titles for full previews and purchase.
32 screen captures from Picture of the Day selected for their brevity and poetic thrust. A strong representative sampling of lyrical creative nonfiction from this pioneering literary blog.
32 pp, flat-spine softcover $17.99
40 full-color selections comprise this love letter to bicycling that touches on Critical Mass, commuting, touring in Europe, urban cycling, budding romance on two wheels, and more.
40 pp, saddlestitch softcover $19.99
Diary of a month spent at Strawbale Studio in Oxford, Michigan for a natural building materials course taught by Deanne Bednar. Practical tips mixed with meditations on nature.
28 pp, saddlestitch softcover $15.99
36 reflections on American policing, covering everything from Supreme Court decisions, the carceral state, all
the way up to the George Floyd uprising and CHAZ/CHOP Seattle.
36 pp, flat-spine softcover $19.84
The digital word made flesh, 626 screen captures from the first 20 years of Picture of the Day, arranged chronologically in substantial hardcover, full-color volumes that are weighty as textbooks, a perfect coffee table or bedside companion with a rich variety of photography and pithy true life stories suitable for random browsing or reading straight through.
Volume 1: 1998 – 2009, Hardcover, 298pp
Volume 2: 2009 – 2016, Hardcover, 328pp