Below is a photo of Tim Denevi, John Brick, and yours truly.

May 15-18 day and night, into the wee hours, the many performers and audience in New Orleans feasted on every aspect of the GonzoFest–from panels to live jazz, from poetry to a play and several short documentaries. From the panel “Hunter by His Friends and Others Who Knew Him” to “Daughters of Gonzo,” we delved into the wide range of fabulous topics, including a glimpse into the “photo book” of Deborah Fuller’s Owl Farm collection now in preparation for publication. Deborah was, of course, Hunter Thompson’s longtime personal assistant. This is a sneak peak. More soon.

GonzoFest Schedule (Feb 15)

If you missed Fear and Loathing in San Francisco, a short documentary by Romain Thomassin, watch it on his website here.

Photo taken by Curtis Robinson.

Me with David Amram just before his incredible performance of jazz, singing at the piano, sometimes playing flute. And a band accompanying him. It was live jazz at its core and roots.

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Look here. I was the lucky beneficiary of three MacDowell fellowships, where I met marvelous fellow artists in all disciplines and had my own cabin to retreat into. I will never forget the friends I made there, such as Tillie Olsen. Remember, this is ages and ages ago. I told them to keep it, not update it, as I had never seen it before. That look. I was so earnest, wanting to use all my time there to the fullest, working on my “Big Book.”

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Tim Denevi and Margaret Harrell

Author/professor Tim Denevi and I had a delightful time presenting at the Gonzo Fest 2018. The Leo Weekly, Louisville, set up the event in an itinerary:

12-1 p.m.
Writing “Hell’s Angels”: Will the Real Hunter S. Thompson Please Stand Up
Featuring: Timothy Denevi and Margaret Harrell

1:10-1:50 p.m.
Book Signings: Margaret Harrell, Ron Whitehead and Juan Thompson

1:30-2:30 p.m.
The Battle of Michigan Avenue: Chicago 1968, HST and Violence Against Journalists
Panelists: Michael Lindenberger, Timothy Denevi and Ryan Van Velzer
Moderator: Kate Howard

TopsLouisville wrote:

Held at the Main Branch of the Louisville Free Public Library, where Thompson’s mother Virginia worked for many years, GonzoFest Louisville will host two panels, Writing Hell’s Angels: Will the Real Hunter Thompson Please Stand Up? and The Battle of Michigan Avenue: Chicago 1968, Hunter Thompson, and Violence Against Journalists. The festival will also host the Kentucky premiere of the PBS documentary “The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo.”

At the “Writing Hell’s Angels” panel, Tim Denevi, MFA professor at George Mason University, and I gave a program on Hunter, age 29, facing up to challenges in getting his first book, Hell’s Angels, through the publication process at Random House, no small feat under the circumstances of legal challenges and so forth. I was Hunter’s copy editor, the assistant editor to Jim Silberman and the Girl Friday on all matters pertaining to the situation.

Gonzo fest 2018

The News and Tribune gave some background on my fellow presenter:

Denevi’s next book is a work of narrative nonfiction on Hunter S. Thompson. Denevi’s essays on politics, sport, and religion have recently appeared in The Paris Review, New York Magazine, The Normal School, and Literary Hub, where he serves as the nonfiction editor.

With publication imminent, Tim’s second book already has a free preview here on iTunes.

A huge thanks to an unknown diner at the Brown Hotel for the photo of Tim and me.

Hunter Thompson at ranch 1991

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He writes:

The film was aired in France, Germany and Belgium . . .

As soon as it was aired, I asked permission from the production company to show it at Gonzofest and to send me the original files, so that you can not only watch it (it is currently blocked on Arte’s website, only visible in Europe), but watch it without French dubbing on top of your voice and other guests’ voices. I got approval and currently have the file. I am now in the process of translating and subtitling the “French commentary,” which is the main narrative (when you are not speaking). Doing it for you and for the audience at GonzoFest.

Yes, confirming I’ll be at GonzoFest, and excited about it.

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The previous interview I did with her bounced all the way toVienna, where it sparked the plan to found a Gonzofest Vienna – whose first event then fizzled and started percolating in Dublin, Ireland. But it was a tall lift to find an untaken venue in Dublin on that short notice.

So we luckily were offered Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans – Gonzofest 2025. Putting GF Europe on hold, we are considering Italy 2026. Meanwhile, we have a tremendous lineup of talent ready to jump in a plane. More on this New Orleans event at its website.

Betsy Wurzel writes:

We reflect on the unpredictability of life’s twists and turns, sharing personal anecdotes of remarkable synchronicities. Additionally, Margaret delves into her latest revised-edition book, BEYOND 3-D: KEEP THIS QUIET! III, discussing its inspiration and the transformative potential of her LuminEsscence Light Body work courses in facilitating spiritual growth and emotional healing.

Margaret also recommends THE HELL’s ANGELS LETTERS: Hunter S. Thompson, Margaret Harrell, and THE MAKING of AN AMERICAN CLASSIC, available on norfolkpress.com. This interview provides a captivating glimpse into Margaret A. Harrell’s diverse body of work and the eagerly anticipated International Gonzofest.

She was Hunter S. Thompson’s first book editor, helping craft the Hells Angels book. She was also a friend and, as readers of her book Keep This Quiet! know, “special friend.” Some even say she was a muse at the most critical time of his career… she certainly pulls no punches during a live interview from Louisville.

Being interviewed by people that gifted, you cannot help but come up with fascinating material. I am grateful that they pulling me aside at the July 2021 Gonzofest in Louisville for an impromptu interview. (Planned by them.)

Also, recently, before that, did my first Interviewed with Betsy Wurtzel

on Passionate World Talk Radio. It was a lot of fun and roamed over many of the topics I’m most interested in. Betsy wrote:

I highly recommend reading Keep THIS Quiet! Too about Margaret A. Harrell ‘s fascinating life!

Please listen to my interview with Margaret A. Harrell about this book and how these 3 men helped Margaret to be fearless!

Matt Hahn and Margaret Harrell, Gonzofest ’23

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Available NOW in audio at AMPlify Audiobooks; in a few weeks available all across the United States

The Hell’s Angels Letters: Hunter S. Thompson, Margaret Harrell and the Making of an American Classic – Norfolk Press

Read by Margaret A. Harrell, Ron Whitehead, and Becky Parker Geist

Click here to purchase

Coming in Audio in the spring of 2025 – An Underground PRINCIPIA

An Underground PRINCIPIA

An Underground Principia

Read by Margaret A. Harrell, with poetry read by Ron Whitehead and intriguing, teaser footnotes by Becky Parker Geist

Dive into Soul-Enriching Reads by Margaret A. Harrell

Both books Recorded by Pro Audio Voices, Portland OR, with portions recorded by La La Land – Louisville’s Best Recording Studio (lalalandsound.com), Louisville KY

Cover Images by Grant Goodwine

Print version: The Hell’s Angels Letters. Available at Norfolk Press of San Francisco

Print version: An Underground PRINCIPIA. Buy at any online/brick-and-mortar bookstore.

I’m still reading An Underground Principia. I find it very amazing. I really take time to absorb it. And then what I’m doing is—whenever I read something, I try to also incorporate it into my own practice, my own meditations, in the morning. I find it so eye-opening. It is amazing, the information you shared there.–Jef Crab, Taiji master, shaman

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Cover design: Deborah Perdue

I think this may be my most ambitious book yet. And most playful. I say to myself: Who wrote this?

order at Amazon.

Sir Isaac Newton famously complained about “action at a distance.” How was it possible, he wrote, that gravity, or attraction, operated between objects without physical contact? Well, jump to the twenty-first century, and we have a lot more to say about that. Readers will enjoy a brilliant, outrageous, playful exploration of quantum physics in everyday life, from a secret interplay of TV plots with us, in electricity, to other speculations, founded in the author’s decades of initiations as well as being an original thinker and a scholar.
An unusual feature of the illustrations in AN UNDERGROUND PRINCIPIA is a technique called “computer-PK,” or mind through matter in the creation of printouts that refocus the text on-screen in the printing so that nothing happens twice. As in Einstein’s “Credo,” the author exemplifies: “The most beautiful and deepest experience can have is the sense of the mysterious.”

In SPACE ENCOUNTERS II: AN UNDERGROUND PRINCIPIA, Margaret Ann Harrell leaps beyond existentialism, beyond cellular molecular electric, beyond epistemology, beyond phenomenology, beyond quantum physics, beyond first second and third person narrative, beyond fourth person singular, beyond tragedy, beyond comedy, beyond all genres, beyond space and time, beyond yin and yang, beyond dualism in all its manufactured forms, beyond encyclopedic knowledge, beyond gravity, beyond electromagnetics, beyond nondualism, beyond death, beyond 3-D, beyond sound and light to where there is no distance to where there are no gaps to where the ever changing creative imagination is the host of all and everything. SPACE ENCOUNTERS II: AN UNDERGROUND PRINCIPIA is a masterpiece, a miracle.
From start to finish beginning to end I was blown away by the brilliance the radiance the outrageousness the playfulness the hilarity the footnotes the simultaneous multiple conversations all of it!

It’s talking my language, and it’s a language that’s never been spoken! Ha! And Aha!

—Ron Whitehead, U.S. National Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate

Margaret Harrell has the most open-ended and far-reaching mind of anyone I know.

—Rhea A. White, Director, the Exceptional Human Experience Network

But who is ready for this culmination of a lifetime, written with multiple spirit guides, or let’s say packs of inspiration? Master Taiji teacher points this out:

My biggest concern is that I have no idea how many people will be able to grasp the depth of the principles you describe. It is amazing enough that you take a lifetime of experiences and connect them into a driving force that leads to the realization of one’s purpose.
Even more amazing is that you include the most subtle levels of existence that play a role in these processes. An Underground Principia connects life purpose, spirituality, depth psychology, and quantum physics into one all-encompassing movement.
Most breathtakingly, by reading An Underground Principia, the reader can gain the insight that all of this is happening, not in one lifetime, whether human or universal, but in an eternal now. Amazing achievement . . .

To help with this conundrum, be on the lookout for this book in audio.

Also, Jef Crab is going to provide some Reader Notes. And maybe assist in a stronger fashion through recorded Skype sessions we are doing together. I couldn’t be more blessed.

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