A New Year Message from Beatdom
Reflecting on 2024 and looking forward to 2025.
It is—at least where I am as I currently type these words—the first day of 2025, a date that still sounds incredibly futuristic. It is however also a year that makes me think of the past, and specifically 1955, an important year in Beat history. It was the year “Howl” was written (and many other important Ginsberg works) and also the year of the 6 Gallery reading. It was when Jack Kerouac first met Gary Snyder; when Philip Whalen and Michael McClure joined the Beat fray; and arguably when the Beat Generation began its very rapid movement towards national and international importance thanks to the combined efforts of these great writers and many others. That was 70 years ago…
We are now in the middle of the third decade of the 21st century and celebrating these anniversaries as well as the centenaries of various important Beat figures. Kerouac’s was just a few years ago and Ginsberg’s is coming up soon. Burroughs’ 110th was last February and we celebrated it at Beatdom with a month of Burroughsian posting on our website.
It is heartening that even as the years go by and the Beat era recedes into history, these writers remain popular and Beat Studies is becoming increasingly vibrant. In fact, it’s getting difficult to stay on top of all the new books and conferences and whatnot. You’d think it would be hard to find something new to say, but again and again we see fascinating new studies and totally new information emerging that reshapes our perceptions of lives and art and events from so long ago. It turns out that much of what we thought we knew wasn’t right, that there are many new ways to look at old texts, and that many talented people were for too long overlooked.
2024
Let’s look back at a few highlights from this past year.
I was delighted to read a new book about Gregory Corso earlier this year, edited by Beatdom regular Leon Horton and published by Roadside Press. I reviewed it here. Few would argue with the statement that Corso was central to the Beat movement yet he has been rather overlooked during the explosion of Beat Studies these past few decades. This book is an essential resource that will hopefully encourage more work about this difficult character.
Oliver Harris also has a new book out. Harris is of course known for his unparalleled research into the life and work of William S. Burroughs but this new book is a study of a photograph. That’s right. Personally, this is the sort of thing I like the most about literary history. I love it when people find some little thing that has been overlooked or misunderstood and then dig into it, revealing far more than anyone could have imagined and changing our perceptions. My copy of this book just arrived in Cambodia a few days ago and I will review it early next year. You can get your own copy through Moloko Print.
We also saw the release of Self-Portrait: Collected Writings by Jack Kerouac, a new collection edited by Paul Maher Jr. and Charles Shuttleworth and with a foreword by Jonathan Evison. Embarrassingly, I’ve not read it yet. It’s not easy getting books where I live but I’ll grab a copy next time I’m somewhere with an English-language bookstore or delivery fees that aren’t three times the price of the book. I similarly look forward to Rethinking Kerouac: Afterlives, Continuities, Reappraisals by Erik Mortenson and Tomasz Sawczuk.
Whilst mentioning these excellent Beat books from 2024, I cannot miss the chance to remind you of our own titles: Beatdom #24 and The Burroughs-Warhol Connection. The former is our annual journal comprised of essays and interviews and reviews, with the focus this time on the West Coast. It has essays on Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Duncan, Diane di Prima, and more. The Burroughs-Warhol Connection is a new book by Victor Bockris that is our most visually complex publication to date. In fact, it took us several years just to put it together.
On a related note, earlier this year we saw the first edition of Beat Spotlight released by the Beat Studies Association. It is a free publication for members of this essential organisation, which you can join here.
Another “new release” but of a totally different kind is the film version of Queer. That’s right. It finally happened! I remember waiting for this movie to be made about 15 years ago, being promised by any number of movie websites that it was in production and would be ready any moment… But it kept falling through and it seemed it would never happen, but at long last it is out there for the public to see. Living on a mountain in rural Cambodia, I have not yet managed to see it but every single thing I’ve heard about it so far has been positive. People seem to love it and the trailers indeed make it look excellent. Given the awful adaptations we’ve seen of Beat books and lazy Beatspoitation histories, this is a welcome change.
Here at Beatdom, we’ve not only put out a new issue of the journal and a new book, but we’ve also been busy posting on our website and this newly created Substack (which you are reading right now). Some notable essays include:
These are all quite lengthy. In fact, add them together and you have a decent-sized book! Feel free to read, enjoy, and share if you have the time and inclination.
On the subject of Substack, you may have noticed you are now receiving more e-mails from us (or app notifications if, like me, you hate having your inbox bombarded with this sort of thing). We began using Substack as a replacement mailing list but to be honest it is becoming quite tempting to use this rather than our old Wordpress-based website. Running a self-hosted website can be complicated, time-consuming, and expensive. Last week, our site was hacked and all our content was deleted. (This seems to have been due to an outdated plugin being exploited by someone who had helped us with web design.) Thankfully, it was recovered in just a few hours but it is a reminder of how challenging it can be to run a website even for a small business like Beatdom. Also, with the development of AI, it seems Google doesn’t want anyone to actually find our content and would rather rewrite it, add a couple of mistakes, and keep people in the dark about complex areas of Beat history. With Substack, interested readers can receive our latest posts directly and read them in full. This potential switch is something we will continue to discuss and experiment with for the next weeks and months. Feel free to offer your feedback, publicly or privately.
By the way, seeing as you are reading this on Substack, please consider signing up for Simon Warner’s Rock and the Beat Generation. I’m sure most of you already do, but if you don’t… Well, you’re missing out. One of my favourite reads of the year was an interview Steve Silberman did with Philip Whalen, which Simon posted a few months ago after Steve’s passing. Steve was a friend of many in the Beat community and he is sorely missed.
Right. That’s all for this rambling round-up review of the year. Let’s look to the future now.
2025
In 2025, Beatdom will publish Stewart Meyer’s Burroughs' Bunker Years, his memoir of life in Burroughs’ Bowery Bunker. We are also in talks over several other books that may or may not be published later this year. Stay tuned for more on that… And by “stay tuned,” I mean subscribe to this newsletter.
Of course, readers can also expect Beatdom #25. This will be published later than usual. We normally put out a new journal issue in May but this time we want to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the 6 Gallery reading in October. That means the submission date has been pushed back. Details here. The theme for this issue is “The San Francisco Renaissance.” As always, we’re liberal with our interpretations of the theme, but do get in touch if you have an idea. We’ve already received a number of fascinating proposals and I think this will be a hell of an issue. (Beatdom #26 will be devoted to Allen Ginsberg and published on the 100th anniversary of his birth—June 3, 2026. We are also open to submissions for that.)
The European Beat Studies Network is hosting its annual conference in Hildesheim on September 15-17. More on that here. It’s too late to send in a proposal but not too late to book your flight and find a hotel. (By the way, that conference falls on the 70th anniversary of Allen Ginsberg’s first ever public poetry reading—another Beativersary!)
This isn’t really “Beat” news but in May there will be a celebration of Hunter S. Thompson in New Orleans. This is called Gonzofest and is the latest iteration of an event founded by Beat Poet Laureate Ron Whitehead. Beat scholar Kurt Hemmer will be speaking alongside a number of other experts in what looks set to be a great event. One very cool concept is the “daughters of Gonzo” aspect. (See the above link for more.) I’m not sure if I’m meant to say this publicly but they are launching a book at that event. It will be the first collection of essays devoted to this criminally underappreciated writer. I’ve seen the TOC and it looks set to be a landmark work of criticism.
Thompson died 20 years ago in February (a Gonzoversary?) and his legacy has been grossly mishandled since then. It’s time to change that. Thankfully, a collector known as “The Jackalope” in Gonzo circles has donated a vast trove of Thompson materials to the Lilly Library at Indiana University, where finally—after a stupidly long time—academics will have access to his letters and writings. With absolutely no support whatsoever from the people supposedly tasked with managing his estate, it has again come down to his fans and other unaffiliated individuals to ensure that his legacy is not left to rot.
On the subject of legacy, I must point out that no literary estate does a better job than the Allen Ginsberg one. Please bookmark their website and follow them on social media. They do a truly heroic job of celebrating Ginsberg’s life and keeping us informed of other literary events and dates. Here’s a list of their best posts from 2024.
The Beat Museum of San Francisco is currently looking to expand with the opening of the Counterculture Museum in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury. Here’s their website. They say:
The Counterculture Museum will explore countercultures, subcultures, and the dominant cultures from which they arise, with a strong focus on 20th century countercultures—in particular those important to San Francisco and the Bay Area.
I’ve had the pleasure of visiting the Beat Museum several times and look forward to seeing this new one when it opens.
I’m sure that I have overlooked many important books and events and announcements both from 2024 and 2025. Sorry if yours was not mentioned here. This e-mail was a spontaneous composition that has drastically exceeded the anticipated 500-word round-up concept. Feel free to reach out with your Beat news for 2025 and I’ll try to share it with the Beatdom community at an appropriate time.
Happy New Year to you all. May this be another productive and creative period for the Beat Studies world.