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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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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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Follow it! 

Gonzo Flyers created by that inimicable artist

GRANT GOODWINE.

If you feel inclined to buy a T-shirt to help us bring the best contributers in the world to New Orleans, go here.

To browse the official website, go here. World-famous composer/musician David Amram is playing with four New Orleans musicians. Panels you won’t want to miss are booked. Old friends will be hanging out.  No Tickets needed, though if you like, there will be a donations option at the door. More here.

THANK YOU. See you there.

Also, in the news . . .

The Hell’s Angels Letters – Hunter S. thompson

This book in hands – IT IS MIND BLOWING JAW DROPPING!!!

I just can’t leave it alone!

I approach it, open it, flip through it, can hardly decide what to read first, enjoy some pages, close it, do something else, and walk back to it, open it…… – for hours now!

Feel like taking two weeks off to just stay IN IT!

All these letters from Hunter asking you to save the situation, etc. ADORABLE!!!!

Wow! Thank you. Remember, it’s 1/4 written by Hunter (his new writing presented in color scans, full size).

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The host was marvelous, keeping things lively. Robert Sharpe has very thoughtful, interesting, wide-ranging topics. And he was ready to find them in Keep This Quiet Too! – vol. II of the KTQ! series. BookLife, the indie arm of Publishers Weekly, has its verdict on the book:

With an eye for surprising detail, Harrell conjures a charged and vivid milieu, even as the story she tells is often painful . . . A journey with grand destinations throughout the globe and within the author’s consciousness. – 

BookLife further calls it: “charged, vivid, painful, grand.” I’ll take it.  Also of interest, says the reviewer, is “her abundant enticing experiences and insights, and her relationships with her subjects.” The review opens:

“I’m not crazier than you,” Harrell reports once saying to her friend Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson’s response: “No, but you talk crazier.” That exchange, recounted in an introductory author’s note, kicks off the second in a series of memoirs (after Keep This Quiet!) by Harrell that examine her relationship with three fascinating men of letters: first that gonzo icon Thompson, for whom Harrell served as an editor at Random House and maintained a friendship with through his years of covering horse races and regatas, and Milton Klonsky, the beat writer who was her literary and spiritual advisor. Finally, there is the poet Jan Mensaert, her troubled husband, whose struggle with drugs, alcohol, and mental illness overshadowed his considerable artistic abilities.

“Horse races and regatta,” that’s a funny take on all the political news tackled. Just scratching the surface.

I’m VERY appreciative of the review, with phrases that lift out beautifully. And those topics and facets were on full display in this interview.

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If you would like it personally signed, contact me.  I will take orders to deliver personally to the Gonzofest in July 2013! It’s a marvelous gift or for your personal collection.

Read reviews and a book description on BookLife here.

Below are some reactions to The Hell’s Angels Letters followed by photos related to the book and me. Cover: Grant Goodwine. For collectors, there is a limited edition of 120 (at $120). For the high-end coffee table edition ($60, 297 pages, many in color), you can’t go wrong, as underscored enthusiastically by every single reader. Attention: there’s now an ebook  option on Amazon here.

REVIEWS:

The eminent reviewer for the Washington Post Michael Dirda has given a Big Head’s Up to The Hell’s Angels Letters: Hunter S. Thompson, Margaret Harrell and the Making of an American Classic in his October 8, 2020, write-up about it inside a piece called “Can’t get enough Game of Thrones or Star Wars? New editions on cult favorites are here to satisfy:

Among late 20th-century American writers, none can rival Norman Mailer and Hunter S. Thompson in sheer force of personality, both on the page and in person. Mailer, whether in his fiction, polemical essays or reportage, always aimed to be consequential, to be fiercely engaged with his times. Would that he were living now! For a hint of what we’ve lost, check out the latest book-length issue, Volume 13, of “The Mailer Review” at the home page of The Norman Mailer Society. Thompson’s motto might well have been “Nothing in moderation.” For “The ‘Hell’s Angels’ Letters,” Margaret Ann Harrell — in collaboration with Ron Whitehead — has assembled a dossier of all her correspondence with Thompson during the time she worked as the editor of the gonzo writer’s “strange and terrible saga of the outlaw motorcycle gangs.” Typed manuscript pages, scribbled notes, photographs, interviews and all sorts of period ephemera relating to “Hell’s Angels” allow the reader a valuable, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the making of this classic of New Journalism.

Beatdom review by publisher David Wills, author of High White Notes:

Finding the truth amidst the Gonzo madness of Hunter Thompson’s life story is not easy. He was an incorrigible self-mythologiser and the books about him tend to incorporate many of his own fantastic – and totally untrue – stories as though they were fact. Harrell attempted to dispel at least one of these myths in Keep This Quiet and digs deeper in The Hell’s Angels Letters, determined to set the record straight about how and where Thompson got the idea for a book on the Death of the American Dream and how his pet snake can to a violent end.

As the title implies, this book is mainly comprised of letters between Harrell and Thompson, some typed and some handwritten, and all printed here in colour. Of course, there are already two collections of Hunter Thompson’s letters available, but somehow they are even more enjoyable when read in the original form. Whether typed or scrawled in giant letters with a red pen, Thompson’s correspondence is invariably annotated and corrected in his unique way, adding a layer of personality that was missing from the collections, as well – of course – as Harrell’s explanations that provide further insight.

Margaret Harrell, The Hell’s Angels Letters launch

In case you missed it, there’s a Gonzo Today review of The Hell’s Angels Letters Letters by Kyle K. Mann, Editor-in-Chief. It opens like this:

This is a big book, literally and figuratively. The short version:

The Hell’s Angels Letters is a must-have text for any Hunter S. Thompson fan. Lavishly documented and illustrated with the actual correspondence that led to the publication of his breakthrough literary effort, ‘Hell’s Angels,’ this coffee-table book literally shows how HST boot-strapped his way from a impoverished nobody journalist to growing legend. The author, Margaret Harrell, who was Thompson’s editor on his inaugural book, and her collaborator, Thompson’s friend and associate poet Ron Whitehead, have succeeded brilliantly to create a fabulous present for you, or anyone in your life who admires Thompson’s numerous achievements. It is not inexpensive, but no matter, it’s worth every penny. The Hell’s Angels Letters: Hunter S Thompson, Margaret Harrell and the Making of an American Classic gets five stars out of five! Bravo!

The long version:

I was delighted to get the package at the Topanga Post Office from Ron. I got it home and opened it eagerly. As I flipped through the pages, I was astounded to see typewritten and even handwritten letters from HST. Beyond amazing! But, how the freaking hell am I going to review it?

It sat on my desk for weeks, demanding attention. I found myself resentful as the days went by… what am I doing with this monstrosity? I’d open it and recoil due to the intensity of HST’s personality, roaring off the page. I tried getting stoned and looking anew, but nope, way too heavy to digest and analyze in that state. Yet, Ron had sent it to me to review, and I knew our Gonzo Today readers wanted, even needed, to get my take.

To continue reading, click here.

In the Hunter Thompson Kitchen, Frazier Museum

First official reader review:

The Hell’s Angels Letters is a unique combination: at the center is Hunter Thompson’s letters to his contact person at Random House as his bestseller Hell’s Angels comes into being. (That contact continues thereafter.) Beside this is the admiring and excited perspective of that beautiful young woman at Random House, who then changes course to set off on some adventures of her own. (She turns out to be very interesting and deep in her own way, becoming more complex as she matures.) Interwoven is a history of the times, from literary and political perspectives, with a cast of characters from then. Plus interviews and short articles by authorities exploring Hunter Thompson’s  legacy. Photographs. And witty cartoons. 

I found this highly accessible book intriguing in a down-to-Earth very human way, requiring not metaphors, but rather—it seems to me—a deeply self-revealing honesty. I have liked it tremendously.

Paul Krassner, a player in The Hell’s Angels Letters

Virginia Williams, PhD, President of Williams LifeSkills

With Rory Feehan at the Frazier 2019

Juan Thompson, Margaret Harrell, Tim Denevi

Tim Denevi and Margaret Harrell

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Human memory awakens and extinguishes at will.

This quote offers a good launching pad for why memoir wiriting is so educational and also so transformative. You can start writing a memoir and stop for a year, blocked by what you will have to reveal. Or you can stop as at a wall because you think you have forgotten. Well, of course, you have. But that doesn’t mean you can’t write a memoir. In this talk I give some tips for new writers and experienced ones, on the challenge of memoirs.

If you missed this year’s conference, all the videos are accessible with a one-year pass for juat $59. Loads of inspiration for writers.

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