Above: Grant Goodwine – Hunter on the Coast Highway

One of many images at the Canessa Gallery exhibit – one of the best.

The festival took us back to where it all began, the letters Hunter wrote FROM a tiny apartment in San Francisco in 1966 and after have returned to their original home in coffeetable book form. Join us as we celebrate. Also, this is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And the book that started it all, Hell’s Angels,  had it fiftieth-year celebration in 1966! How the years flew by. He left us physically but left these books and memories behind.

MAIN EVENTS JULY 16 – JULY 18, 2021: HARD COVER BOOK LAUNCH

These events were streamed live and the videos are now online.

 

 

 

Below are the updated, final (corrected) public links to all the Launch events July 16-18. The San Francisco Launch turned into a FESTIVAL.

Margaret A. Harrell Interview by David Streitfeld

Panel with Peter Richardson, William McKeen, Dr. Rory Patrick Feehan and David Streitfeld

A panel consisting of William McKeen and Dr. Rory Patrick Feehan (on Zoom) and David Streitfeld and Peter Richardson (in the Canessa Gallery Live) will discuss “Hell’s Angels as a bridge to Hunter becoming the Gonzo figure in Fear and Loathing.” This is the fiftieth anniversary year of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971).

Moderators: Margaret A. Harrell and Ron Whitehead.

The State of Gonzo Address: Ron Whitehead

“The State of Gonzo Address: Searching for Hunter S. Thompson.” A 20-minute talk by Ron Whitehead, followed by a 20-minute talk by John Brick, PhD candidate, on his research for his Marquette dissertation, “Gonzo Eternal,” ending with a 15–30-min. Q & A.

Dr. Rory Patrick Feehan: Hunter S. Thompson Archives

Tim Devevi Interview and Reading

A 45-minute Zoom talk by Tim Denevi discussing Hunter’s development and growth as a writer during the time he wrote the Hell’s Angels article and the book. Followed by 15–30 minutes of Live Q & A from Margaret Harrell and Ron Whitehead.

Live Gonzo Art with Grant Goodwine

At the historic Canessa Gallery

To attend any of these events in person, sign up below. Space is limited.

July 16, 2021— Friday evening at 7 p.m.
A 45-minute Zoom talk by Tim Denevi discussing Hunter’s development and growth as a writer during the time he wrote the Hell’s Angels article and the book. Followed by 15–30 minutes of Live Q & A from Margaret Harrell and Ron Whitehead.

 

 

 

 

ORDER THE HARD COVER OR HIGH-END SOFT COVER BOOK FROM NORFOLK PRESS

For ten months now I’ve been on the recommended list of editors for Self-Publishing School (SPS), a highly successful teaching program for writing and marketing, which has clients worldwide. This has introduced me to a large number of editing clients worldwide I would never otherwise have met, and we have had many happy adventures together. Finally, I decided to collect some of the book titles and also some author comments:

Man Cave of Health: A Why-To Book about Men’s Health: Through the Eyes of a Health  Coach Who Has Heard It All

The cover is being designed. The author, LaRue Palmer, a health coach and chef, who worked at many famous Las Angeles restaurants and then at SpaceX, writes about the editing process:

Great work all around. You have transformed me into a better writer, and for the first time, an AUTHOR! Thank you for giving me my start. I am forever in your debt.

Young and Dumb: Year of Years, which will soon be followed by a riotous book about dogs playing baseball.

Acknowledgments Testimonial: “Several people were instrumental in the publication of this book; the warmest thanks go out to . . . my editor Margaret Harrell, who managed to improve this book tremendously with her skill and perseverance.” Elsewhere:

This is absolutely fabulous, just what I wanted. I agree with almost every single one of your edits . . . You are doing a great job and making the MS better on almost every page.

 The Change Journey – endorsed by Mike Dooley, NY Times Best Selling Author of Infinite Possibilities: “The Change Journey is a beautiful and inspirational guide to honoring yourself that shows you exactly how to get there.”

Testimonial:

Thank you for your help and expertise. You have been amazing. I am so happy and proud with the final result.

My Stories Have No Endings

Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards

Acknowledgments Testimonial:

I was further blessed with Margaret Harrell’s keen editing eye. Her knowledge of words and language was an immense help to completing the book. Furthermore, her guidance on all things publishing was invaluable.

Coming Momentarily

Michael Rowell, Leadership Upgrade

Editor: Margaret ‘The Amazing’ Harrell

AND

Nicole Flemming, Escaped

Canessa Gallery  – click to see the beautiful interior

Limited Edition of 125 The Hell’s Angels Letters: Hunter S. Thomson, Margaret Harrell and the Making of an American Classic

The month of July in the Canessa Gallery, San Francisco

MAIN EVENTS—Pacific Coast Time:

Friday evening, July 16—7 p.m. A 20-minute Zoom talk by Tim Denevi discussing Hunter’s development and growth as a writer during the time he wrote the Hell’s Angels article and the book. Followed by 15–30 minutes of Live Q & A from Margaret Harrell and Ron Whitehead.

Saturday afternoon, July 17—2:30. A Live performance in Canessa Gallery. Journalist David Streitfeld will interview Margaret A. Harrell, author of The Hell’s Angels Letters, for roughly a couple of hours, including Q & A and then book signing. A spontaneous interview by a master interviewer who interviewed Hunter multiple times—no prepackaged answers. Everything improvised and spontaneous.

Saturday evening—7 to 8 p.m.: “Live Gonzo Art with Illustrator Grant Goodwine”

Saturday evening—8 p.m. )Live): “The State of Gonzo Address 2021: Hunter S. Thompson Crazy Wisdom Visionary.” A 20-minute talk by Ron Whitehead, followed by a 20-minute talk by John Brick, PhD candidate,  on his research for his Marquette dissertation, Gonzo Eternal, ending with a 15-30-min. Q & A.

Sunday, July 18: 2 p.m.

Topic: a panel consisting of William McKeen and Dr. Rory Patrick Fehan (on Zoom) and (in the Canessa Gallery Live) David Streitfeld and Peter Richardson will discuss “Hell’s Angels as a bridge to Hunter becoming the Gonzo figure in Fear and Loathing.” This is the fiftieth anniversary year of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971).

Moderators: Margaret A. Harrell and Ron Whitehead.

Short Bios:

Grant Goodwine is a Louisville-Based Illustrator who has long been affiliated with the GONZO movement, including helping illustrate The Hell’s Angels Letters and annual posters for Gonzofest and even for Churchill Downs to help celebrate Hunter’s “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved.” Grant puts in his effort to help conserve Hunter’s Legacy along with hopes of keeping Gonzo going.

Margaret A. Harrell is a three-time MacDowell Colony fellow, who was Hunter’s copy editor and Jim Silberman’s assistant editor on Hell’s Angels at Random House, as well as working on many successful books there. With degrees from Duke University and Columbia University, she studied three years at the C. G. Jung Institute Zurich. She has lived in the U.S., Morocco, Switzerland, and Belgium and has fourteen published books, including the Keep This Quiet! memoir series and The Hell’s Angels Letters. Multifaceted, she is an author, editor, advanced meditation (light body) teacher and experimental cloud photographer.

Ron Whitehead, poet, writer, editor, publisher, professor, scholar, activist, is the author of 24 books and 34 albums. Ron has produced thousands of events and festivals, including 24 & 48 & 72 & 90 hour non-stop music & poetry Insomniacthons, in Europe and the USA. He has presented thousands of readings, talks, and performances around the world. He has edited and published hundreds of titles. The recipient of many awards, his work has been translated into 20 languages. In 2018 Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer presented Ron with a Lifetime Achievement for Work in The Arts Award. In 2019 Ron was named Kentucky’s Beat Poet Laureate and was also the first U.S. citizen to be named UNESCO’s Tartu City of Literature Writer-in-Residence.. He is co-founder and Chief of Poetics for Gonzofest Louisville. Outlaw Poet: The Legend of Ron Whitehead documentary will be released by Storm Generation Films/Dark Star TV in 2021.

David Streitfeld is the editor of Hunter S. Thompson: The Last Interview and Other Conversations (Melville House, 2018). The Last Interview series, which he edits, includes such authors as Gabriel García Márquez, Philip K. Dick and J. D. Salinger. He is a reporter for the New York Times, where in 2013 he was part of the team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. He has won various other prizes for his journal­ism. In the past he worked for the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.

William McKeen is a professor and the Chairman of the De­partment of Journalism at Boston University; he is the author or editor of thirteen successful books, including Outlaw Jour­nalist, Mile Marker Zero, and Everybody Had an Ocean. McK­een teaches courses on journalism history, literary journalism and rock n’ roll and American culture and previously taught at Western Kentucky University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Florida, where he chaired the depart­ment of journalism.

Rory Patrick Feehan, PhD, is a Hunter S. Thompson Schol­ar and the founder of Totallygonzo.org. He graduated with a doctorate in English Language & Literature from the Uni­versity of Limerick in 2018. He has spoken at the Louisville Gonzofest and at the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, on the opening night of their exhibit Gonzo: The Illustrated Guide to Hunter S. Thompson. A regular contributor to Beatdom, he has also recently contributed a piece on Thompson to the ency­clopedia American Political Humor: Masters of Satire and Their Impact on U.S. Policy and Culture.

Tim Denevi is the author of Freak Kingdom: Hunter S. Thompson’s Manic Ten-Year Crusade Against American Fascism (PublicAffairs, 2018) and Hyper: A Personal History of ADHD (Simon & Schuster, 2014). His essays on politics, sport, and religion have recently appeared in The Paris Review, New York Magazine, Salon, The Normal School, and Literary Hub. He received his MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa, and he’s been awarded fellowships by the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Tim is an assistant professor at George Mason University and lives near Washington, DC.

John F. Brick is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He specializes in American literary journalism of the 1960s and ’70s with a particular focus on Hunter S. Thompson and Gonzo journalism, and among his long-term career goals is to see the burgeoning niche of Thompson studies coalesce around centralized, comprehensive archives.  To that end, his work involves locating and cataloging—occasionally from unusual places—material by and about Thompson heretofore unknown to literary scholarship.  Alongside his dissertation, Gonzo Eternal, Brick is also presently compiling a thorough annotated variorum of Thompson’s seminal Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (but don’t tell his dissertation director about that).

Playing on the Big Canessa Screen – during the month of July

 1. Wonderland Book Club panel on The Hell’s Angels Letters

Alice Osborn, moderator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVJbHG03dOg

2. Margaret A. Harrell – filmed live by film maker Nick Storm, Gonzo Fest 2014, Carmichael’s Bookstore, Louisville KY. DVD (Mailed Fed Ex)

3. Rory Feehan’s 25-minute video of his extensive HST collection, with him narrating
4. A 9-min. video by Tim Ferris, awarded science writer and also former Rolling Stone science writer at the time of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter’s friend. Exquisite remembrance.

5. Video of the events themselves as they are finished

ARTIFACTS for the Walls

Canessa Gallery

which recently celebrated its 50th birthday, is hosting the Launch of the hard cover deluxe edition of The Hell’s Angels Letters: Hunter S. Thompson, Margaret Harrell and the Making of an American Classic all during the month of July! Coming soon! If you are in San Francisco, drop by and see the exhibit. The live events I will participate in, and Ron Whitehead and Grant Goodwine will occur during the week of July 15 – 19, with a grand crescendo, I expect, on July 18, Hunter’s birthday. We just picked up the plan from 2020 and moved it – expanded – to 2021. More details as they open up. If you want an invitation, please let us know, as room is limited. If you have any Hunter Thompson memorabilia you want us to exhibit on the walls, let us know. I will pass that to the curator of the exhibit, Charles Cunningham, man of many hats (he is also the publisher, with a strong artistic bent). If you happen to have anything you want to let us exhibit on loan or anything we can include in the hard cover that is rare HST memorabilia, we will be ecstatic.

Elizabeth Upton has mastered the art of simplicity and peace. She inspires us, in a sentence, to stop and reflect, slow down, take a deep breath, be Present.

In this book, Elizabeth Upton has written a collection of insights that are simple and profound. They lead the reader to stop and ponder, sit and reflect. “Being Real,” “Life Needs Fixing,” and “Bored to Death,” among other chapters, tell us “It is always time to Gather Your Nerve and Live.” She says: “Listen and pause to the life of your mind. Listen and pause to your heart beating in your body with your every step, that offers you deeper understanding of who you are.”

Among Upton’s defining life experiences, she was a nun in a convent for twenty years and also conquered a mysterious disease twice. A deep, abiding compassion gives the author the ability to walk with the reader during our most challenging experiences.

Classes

Join me in 2024 for a LuminEssence “Awakening Your Light Body” course in person or on Zoom. I help you, through the marvelous energies available in the light body and the luminous body, bring your Earth life into alignment with your soul’s potential for your life. And if you want a trial in advance, I offer a free “Preparatory Awakening Your Light Body” class for 1 and a half hours.

BRAND NEW: 

If you have had AYLB, I am teaching a very special course, Da Ben and Duane Packer’s “Discovering the Luminous Body.” Contact me for the date and to discuss what the course entails.

Duane Packer, the founder with DaBen, writes:

There is no end to the levels of consciousness you can reach and the experiences you can have. All expansions of consciousness into more light change your perceptions, insights, understandings, and the way you live your life. With each shift into higher consciousness you are able to make choices and decisions, and to live a life that feels more fulfilling and rewarding.

DaBen, your guide, and many luminous beings
will assist you in evolving into your luminous body.

NEW: WAYS TO STUDY the light body courses

You can learn the light body centers and skills with me in  class – privately or in a small group. Or if not close by, you can study with me through Skype, by phone, by email, and through transmissions that hold energy for your success in the course and in all things.

BEYOND AYLB

Another class option for graduates of “Awakening Your Light Body” is the “Radiance: Self-Exciting” course. If you are ready for a private class, we can begin right away. Or small group classes begin all year round.

Here is the LuminEssence website description of “Self-Exciting”:

Self-Exciting Skills Form the Foundation for Higher Levels of Light Body Experiences
Self-Exciting is a skill and a state on which many other light body skills and states of consciousness are based. If there is one graduate course to take, it would be this one as it teaches you Self-Exciting states that make it possible to have a better experience of all graduate light body courses.

The Self-Exciting skills support you in having better experiences
of the light body spaces at all levels of study.

To take “Self-Exciting,” you must have completed “Awakening Your Light Body.”

The first AYLB class (of 6) is “Building Your Power Base” and introduces the lower three vibrational energy bodies that run up the spine:

This is one of DaBen and Orin’s most transformative spiritual growth courses. Part 1, Building Your Power Base is the place to start to transform your life and consciousness. . . Directly experience many higher, expanded states of consciousness. DaBen transmits energies to teach you how to activate your light body centers (not chakras). Orin provides many processes to assist you in preparing for the rapid growth that can occur as you awaken your light body.

Click the link at the top of the page or contact me to learn more, including prices.

I have studied their work since 1992 and taught it since returning to the U.S. from Belgium in late 2001. Every year I take two brand-new DaBen/Duane Packer courses, keeping up with the latest work to come out and be anchored in the light body grid. For anyone who has already had the “Awakening Your Light Body” prerequisite, there is a long list of Graduate light body courses I teach here. The list has not been updated for several years, so in reality it should be much much longer!

Why study with Margaret?
You will find me listed one of a handful of LuminEssence light body teachers in the United States who are permitted to teach the most advanced light body courses, with the most experience and courses (taken and taught). Click here for teacher listing. In the U.S. only a handful of teachers are listed on the Orin-DaBen website with permission to teach the same level of courses. And only about twenty in the world. This is excluding the “Discovering the Luminous Body” course, which even fewer are allowed to teach.

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What happens in “Awakening Your Light Body,” the initial course?
You awaken your 7 vibrational energy body centers that run subtly along the spine (CD boxes in box 4). On the foundation of that harmony, you then take a Quantum Leap to awaken the first two light body centers (in box 5) and finally another Quantum Leap to awaken the upper light body (in box 6). Then you radiate this new harmony, know what you wish to manifest, and manifest it with much more ease. You are also opening your channel and acquiring the ability to attract a high-level guide or to become aware of the guides who are with you now. Alternately, you can be accessing your soul wisdom and the Universal Mind.

At every class DaBen and Orin, Sanaya and Duane, and I TRANSMIT energy to you individually. Then you are joining those helping to shift the energy of the planet toward more beautiful opportunities. If you would like to meet and talk about the course, let me know.

Other courses, such as Channeling

I also teach a number of light body-related courses on manifesting and channeling that do not require the AYLB prerequisite. If interested, ask me!

Join Margaret with Alice Osborn and Larry Perkins at the Writing Your Legacy panel at the Fifth Annual Carolina Book & Writer Conference virtually on Zoom February 13 at 10:30 a.m. Get a HUGE DISCOUNT by using the code Margaret21.

What is your legacy? How do you determine it? How do you write it? When should you start? Join Margaret, Alice and Larry for top-notch presentations and Q & A on this. And also check out the other panels, available this conference on the same ticket. Be sure to use my code: margaret21 for a huge discount.

Calling all messengers! It’s time to live your dream and share your truth. We know you have a story to tell. Join 26 talented presenters at the Carolina Book & Writer Conference to ignite that dream.

Receive inspiration along with expert answers to an abundance of questions about writing, publishing, and promoting your story. This year is our fifth annual writer’s conference, and we have so many amazing panelists and two fantastic keynote speakers! For the first time, CBWC will be a two-day event, February 13 and 14, 2021. Join us on Zoom to learn more about marketing and sales secrets, romance writing, young adult and children’s fiction, editing and publishing, sharing your legacy through autobiographies and memoirs, diversity writing, and leveraging your book through film, audio books, and more.

Attendees will have a full year of access to all the videos from the conference, so don’t worry if you miss one of the panels.

See what our gifted experts have to say to help you on your journey of becoming a successful author. Listen to powerful keynote presentations from North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green and from Adonal Foyle, former NBA player and author of eight books! Enjoy “office hours” to get to know our panelists and ask questions.

Sign up now on the CarolinaBWC website. To get your early bird discount ticket, use this code when you register: __margaret21_________. (Full price is $197, so be sure to add the discount code for $100 off!)

#CarolinaBWC #CarolinaBookandWriterConference #WriterConference #writers #books #TriangleBook

Watch this panel at 10 p.m. – 11:15 p.m. October 23rd Las Vegas time or watch it later online at the Las Vegas Book Festival. It’s very lively and fun, with panelists – besides me – Juan F. Thompson, Tim Denevi, and Rory Patrick Feehan. And tell me what you think! An honor to participate.

Faces in Sun Blast, a Film (not digital) photograph of a cloud scene, has been selected for the International Prize “New York City” October 21 – 24, 2020.

Looking at the cloud photograph, which I took in Belgium in the late 1990s, when I took several rolls of these sky images every day, then sorted out which ones to later have professionally scanned, I see painting-like scenes in patches. Isolated areas where a “painter” set up an easel and made a work of art. Only, it happened in the clouds. Also, before snapping the image, I did some intentional staring meditatively. For me, this brought it into focus. This image is the cover of a book in progress – very short – by me on cloud artwork, its history, its effect on me, with examples of painting-like clouds.

The event takes place at The WHITE SPACE Gallery CHELSEA (555 West Street N.Y.). The Italian art curators sponsoring the event, Salvatore and Francesco Saverio Russo, are going ahead in spite of Covid. And so they must have a plan. My work is on video display. Other painters, sculptors, photographers, video makers, performers, graphic designers, stylists, also included in the event, may have full-size paintings or other artwork or may present on video. The curators write:

New York brings together the best of art, design, architecture and music of all the world. A place of dreams and emblem of the “new world,” New York is a symbol of travel overseas, of different cultures and styles that meet every day in its frenetic and very rich extra-ordinary daily life.

Besides the video exposure of Faces in Star Burst at the White Space Chelsea Gallery, October 21 – 24, 2020, the cloud giclee film photograph will be displayed in the Italian magazine Art International Contemporary Magazine in the September/October issue. And in an exhibit catalog “The Stars of Contemporary Art.”

The eminent reviewer for the Washington Post Michael Dirda has just 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.

It reads:

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.

Buy only at the publisher’s website here.