A.F. Knott's Blog

Hekate IS fulfilling its mission statement: To represent authentic artists and writers.

I am so proud of Michael D. Davis, this kid from Iowa who is NOT afraid to do his thing. We were honored to be part of his early journey as author and cartoonist. Big things ahead. THAT’S the point. He’s publishing his own books now. I love each one. And they get better and better. Check out his Dead Peach Press PO Box 408 Toledo, IA 52342.

He’s not the only one. Hekate is a zoo of “genii,” of all ages, sizes, beliefs, all of them ornery. We are making our way down the queue this summer:

We are doing Channie Greenberg’s illustrated book of poetry. Exquisite and חכם מאוד.

We’ll then come out the worm hole and nether world water board you with Robert Masterson’s literary dungeon master collection.

Then Cindy Rosmus. Her collaboration with Keith Walker is ALREADY A CLASSIC before publication. I’m dead serious.

Ken Crist and Jeff Iwanski have birthed an another KNOCKOUT. I am SO excited. Two American greats. Both unassuming and modest, both fucking brilliant in their respective corners.

And Hekate’s poet laureate Alex Salinas, a precision lyricist already with so much more to come. Honored to be part of THIS young fella’s early journey. Love whenever we have corresponded.

I couldn’t understand how to format Channie Greenberg’s book. She contacted another publisher. They advised me to fiddle with margins, with fonts. I did. Now it’s shorter. I thanked them because I like the book. She reminds me of an Israeli Edith Sitwell. Am holding my breath in submitting the manuscript for the Amazon printing cost with its myriad color images. Amazon is the guy on cell block two who eats filet mignon and sells your ass for cigarettes.

Robert Masterson’s book and Cindy’s book will probably be out soon. Am excited. Then others, one pair of rails at a time, ties, spikes, splices, two and a half fucking miles of track a day, inching toward Cheyenne. Will stop there. Get drunk. Maybe drag up, Head back to New Orleans.

Off social media. Taken to writing irritating emails to authors. Hopefully will dissuade further submissions. I cringe in receiving even a single one, stammering curses, just before rushing into the bathroom, BARELY MAKING IT BEFORE THE TORRENT OF WATERY STOOL SHOOTS OUT, like an open faucet. Hekate regresses, rocking on its wooden chair, sat in front of a wooden table, gripping a can of unheated tomato soup with both hands, all of it cascading over its chin rather than into the mouth, onto a bare chest slashed by purple neon, the sign sputtering in eternal night outside the window . . . that’s right, at the fucking gates of hell, the place where the ferry captain and deck hand sometimes stay, permanent residence of the cigarette girl, of course, and other celebrities.

There are more books to come. Will they matter if the alien presence on Earth is confirmed? Will you still take your fish oil supplement, your Co Q 10?

I saw Joey Chestnut eat 76 hot dogs on July 4th at the Brooklyn Cyclone’s stadium. “World Record.” No one else came close. I have his picture on my phone, a sideways picture. I got there at ten thirty for a front row seat. I was tempted to have a beer. 12 dollars a can. Didn’t. The tops of my thighs got wicked sunburned. I had to buy a tube of aloe vera the next morning. But I went to the boardwalk after and bought cheap beer from people on the benches, listened to salsa, got more sunburned.

I’d like to give more of an alien update but I haven’t researched it. They’re being cagey. I wonder what they know that I don’t. I wonder if there is an alien spacecraft in some underground lab somewhere. Doubt it. If they could get here, or one of THEIR drones, they’d view us as ants at best, the Earth like a potted plant.

I’m waiting for Bitcoin to decide which way it’s going. Been ranging for weeks after a break in the market trend.

I’m hoping an old writer friend David Gombac submits something. He won’t. Just to say, there are hidden pockets of gas in the mine shaft. He’s one of them. So don’t smoke down there. His prose is waiting.

The collage is called Coney Island Baybee.

We make books.

We paste your manuscript text into a formatted Word file. We futz with that for a while. The assumption is the submitted manuscript is complete. or finished. Then, either separately or using the Amazon software, we convert the Word file into a PDF file.. The PDF file is used by the printer to construct the physical book.

Problems arise in that conversion process, generally issues with Word formatting translating poorly into PDF. Computers are literal. So there ensues a period of negotiation between Word and PDF files.

The cover is created separately. Initially, we designed the cover from scratch and did the conversion into a formatted PDF. Now we plug in images and futz with the Amazon cover creator software.

Hekate is happy to answer any questions an author might have with regard to self publishing or the technicalities of that process. This has become our desperate reality.

American Radiators advertisement

In the dead of winter Hekate is managing to push out a few books! Taking the B36 back and forth to work, up and down Surf Avenue, falling asleep by 730 every night, clothes on, shoes on, after a slice of pizza or calzone, (and waking up fully refreshed the next morning, while being fully clothed only needing to pat the hair down, stuff a tea bag into shirt pocket and prance out the door). Aye, pushing books out like pushing rock hard stool out the ass, rock hard dingleberries, splashing Hekate’s buttocks as they land in the pristine bowl with a plip plip plip! Offended? Hekate doesn’t care. She pushes those books out and leaves them smoldering at the Gates of Hell with a sneer. That’s publishing! Having a good bowel movement, by the way, what I telI people at the office, is all about “making time.” You need to sit there, on the pot, and read your book or play at least one full level of Thug Life. By the way, what level of Thug Life are you? I’m level forty: Detention. What level are you again? You call yourself a writer?You know some guy tried to fake his own death in order to get me to publish his book. I’m serious. I’d still publish it. I don’t care. In fact, kudos to him for trying. Guy, if you’re reading this, write me, my man. All is forgiven. You’re the king! We’ll have your sum bitch done and dusted before sundown.Anyway, here are a few covers and some random previews, whatever tickles our fancy.Hekate is entering an experimental phase, a we dont give a fuck about your expectations of what a publisher is or isn’t phase, a we are not here to stroke an ego which can’t fit through the fucking front door phase. And in that, we are no longer taking “submissions.” Hekate, for one, obviously, does not take itself that seriously, and has grown SICK of the word submission as it relates to publishing. It’s demeaning to a writer and indicative of this river of luke warm diarrhea publishing has become. Writers come to its banks and ladle it into their mouths, willingly. “Click on the submission button.” “Use our submission manager.” Hekate no longer takes SUBMISSIONS. Listen. The world is dumb as fuck. What we want is your RAW SEWAGE, without pretense. We want to smell your STINKY STINKY ARMPITS. If you don’t know what I mean by this, don’t send anything. Go away. Or at least, don’t send your bullshit unless its edited. I say again: Edit your writing. I NOW understand why publishers say this. I used to think its was crass and overbearing. No. I have received festering yeast infections. Aside from casual literary conversation, don’t send rough drafts. Control yourself. Take the electrodes off your nipples. Be a writer. Edit-your-bullshit. Take your time. Learn how to write. Hekate is cresting the Swiss Mountain top and twirling. She is free, spinning through the green grass, snow capped peaks in the distance, having escaped Nazi occupation, understanding full well the cadence of their thunderous goose stepping was all in her head.

DAVID GOMBAC, The Nathaniel West of Chicago’s South Side

Domenico Ghirlandaio 'St. Lucy'

"Grace changes us and change is painful." Flannery O Connor

We are back at it with renewed vigor. Just kidding. But back at it and giving less of a fuck (than say, in 2020, after observing the state of a parochial and provincial humankind with its shit stained imprisoned imagination). We want to free ourselves from Amazon but that’s hard to do, practically. So dunno. Crypto going up might help. In the meantime, we’ll continue to disappoint the impatient. Hekate was not created as a vanity press. Making a single book is a time consuming, mechanical undertaking with a dab of aesthetics thrown in, the return being FUN HAD in working with enthusiastic and invested people who edit their work.

We don’t make money. Just the opposite. Which is why we look for authenticity, authors, artists, thinkers who are NOT trying to please, coddle their ego, parrot or conform. Recently we received a single line, an opening, and agreed to publish the book with the understanding both author and publisher will likely be dead before the project is complete.

Last month David Spicer sent me his Mad Sestina King, a book of poetry just published. I loved it and wrote him a note to that effect but didn’t hear back. This week, Nancy, his wife, replied using his email address: David had two massive strokes and was placed on a ventilator at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis. She was told he likely wouldn’t survive.

Hearts go out to David and Nancy.

Hispanic sonnet, or End of American maniac

By Alex Z. Salinas

 

for David Spicer

 

David, you’re dying / but it feels as tho

You’ve written yourself out of death.

Sestina King, American Maniac, your

Mind let go but the machines keep you

Breathing. For now. Not much longer.

Remember you told me how in 1980

You accompanied Denis Johnson to an

Arizona prison to visit a mutual friend? You

Said Denis was a marvelous man & writer

And minutes later that Hollywood’ll fuck

Anything up, Shelley’s Frankenstein as

Proof. You blurbed I had cojones to publish

Poems about God. Naw. David, I have to

Tell you, before goodbye, grab the nearest 

 

Partner. Dance. This life. Unbearably sad. Precious.

Hekate started out interviewing New York City street artists before publishing our first incredible little book of poetry: Dan Tompsett’s And So the Flies. We have continued our support of talented creatives, no matter what their genre or format. Today, I’ve asked permission of three Hekate artists to feature some work from their “sketch pads.”












































Pinch Me It’s Christmas, was written and illustrated by Jefferson Dylan Iwanski , an artist I had been following on Instagram around the time Ken Crist sent me a spot-on book of children’s poetry which called for an illustrator. Jeff was approached, said sure, and from the get go, the two were Starksy and Hutch. Hoping they’ll do more. Iwanski has a day job, is a musician, but remains one of the truly original living American illustrator-cartoonists, a category arbitrarily assigned as he’s so difficult to pin down. Jeff has the essential irreverence for convention and expectation (a major stumbling block for many writers and artists: “I have to do it this way or won’t be accepted.”) He delivers the ball like Dan Quisenberry, the submarine style MLB baseball pitcher of the 80s. not caring how the windup looks, all his images ending up in the strike zone. He evokes Don Martin, Ralph Steadman and Klee, melding caricature, watercolor and texture onto paper, his renderings rough and profound.
































































































































































































































Michael D. Davis is young, prolific and talented, an ever evolving writer-cartoonist. He evokes Thurber, Gary Larson and Hammett. No telling where this brilliant young fella will end up. His work makes me snort with surprise and laugh out loud. I know through out correspondence, he possesses the essential elements for success in his craft: A genuine and intense curiosity in people and places, of all things human, a sense of irony, and a relentless ability to explore.

Michael detailed his own work onto the front hood of his ride.

Coates Walker is the ‘old master’ of the lot (sorry, Keith) and in that, precious and nearly uncategorizable. I met him on Flickr, astounded how his collages composed the modern informational world while seeming at once effortless and immensely complex. Every time I looking at his work, I want to ask someone, “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” and feel like that fellow who stumbled onto the storage unit containing all of Vivian Maier’s negatives. Uninterested in copyright, Keith allows images to be used with only reference. He has worked for six decades in art, remaining incredibly prolific, making 7, 8, 9 exquisite compositions a day. Like Jeff Iwanski, he is also a musician and like Jeff Iwanski, cares little for convention. He challenges the notions of what is expected in both content and composition and has provided us images for several of Cindy Rosmus’ brilliant collections. Coates Walker is one of a kind. I picked some of his latest at random, all incredible.

BASIC APPROACH OUTLINED

Combinations of Synchronizing

into the mind

who watches everyone

direct one's attention

He knew nothing

fighting against something

As a kid, in the sixties, I lived on the west side of Manhattan. A knife sharpener arrived every Thursday, pulling his cart half way up the block, stood and banged a pot with what looked like a ladle. Then the ice man. I can’t remember what days he came, but more often than the knife sharpener, also with a cart, but a smaller one, the blocks of ice covered with a frosted tarp. A big set of tongs draped over one shoulder, scraper shoved into a belt loop along with his paper cups and bottles of red and purple syrup for ices.

Medicaid came and the mental institutions closed. I thought it was normal for people, civilians, to occupy intersections and direct traffic. Uniformed officers also did that. Back then cops on the beat twirled billy clubs and hummed. You saw the same guy every day and he’d let you try on his hat sometimes. But the insane helped out with traffic flow, every now and then one of them tried it without clothes and only then would they be asked to leave. For the most part anybody with moxy and a whistle could stand there and contribute. Normal.

Hekate stands at the crossroads, where she belongs, directing traffic if need be, most of the time just standing. Writing projects are still being manufactured, one by one, roughly in order received and with respect to their degree of preparedness. There’s a backlog of work, maybe two years worth, given the time she spends in the underworld. In the meantime, she advises you to keep working hard. Send your work everywhere and try not to seek accolades, herrings for magic tricks. Learn how to make things disappear for real.

BILL CUNNINGHAM

Bruce Gilden

Hopi - 1924

Richard Sandler

Hekate Publishing is thrilled to present a re-release of the epic collaboration (or, Te whakahoahoatanga in Maori) between the magical and elusive Liverpoolean poet Eddie du Montparnasse and the northern phenomena Coates Walker. Originally published by Wright’s Automatic Press and presented here without permission in conjunction with Editions Electronique.

The book arrived between two neatly cut pieces of corrugated card board, slid inside a thickly taped envelope. I thought it was mail art at first. And it was.

Confessions, from Cyberwit.net publishing, slapped me upside the head. One of Spicer’s central threads, a father breaking a son, investigates how that colors a man. Only if he’s lucky, the breaking leads to a journey. It could just as well be a mother breaking a daughter, a father breaking a daughter, a mother breaking a son, doesn’t matter, but sets up the potential for the forever seeking defining that person.

Shel Silverstein’s A Boy Named Sue: “And he said, ‘Son, this world is rough and if a man’s gonna make it, he’s gotta be tough and I knew I wouldn’t be there to help ya along. So I give you that name and I said goodbye, I knew you’d have to get tough or die.’”

Spicer embarked on his heroic quest and eventually comes to celebrate what sets him apart and now sings his own body electric. He has a reason to write and in that, to believe, and it’s not, he implies, to write a poem that will be accepted in The New Yorker (“Wears his perfect poem like a white tuxedo”). In the manufactured industry of literature, there’s a pressure to produce, and as an extension, to please. No, that’s not it (and if that were it - no comment): It’s writing to save your life and that’s why I like this book so much, as that’s what Spicer is doing, writing to save his life and about how he did save his life, which is not an easy thing to accomplish and make it lyrical.

As soon as I recognized this book was personal for me, the writing became universal and then, wonderful.

Anne Sexton. First stanza, the Black Art:

A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.

My journey started in feeling the need to punch my way out of a paper bag, then down the line realizing I was the paper bag etc. Spicer infers the journeyman needs a map some of the time, or a guide (see Dante’s Inferno), or at least come to know somebody who has traveled a similar path. Spicer shares his heroes, the ones who made sense (to him), who put words together in such a way that saved him. I read Confessions as a book about what a poet does, about their underbelly, and thought he described all that remarkably well, as underbellies can be intimate and uncomfortable subject matter.

As much discussion or treatise in places, Spicer’s analysis still takes the shape of poems. There is enough critical thinking to go around, enough of the explicit and dynamic, which is why poetry IS important. Socrates has as much a place at the dinner table as Homer.

One of my favorite poems involves the speaker observing and weighing in on a woman who wore zippered clothing. I knew one too once so was interested in what his take was on all that. With a sense of humor, Spicer finds and describes his identity and voice. Confessions tells that story, how it came to him, paying homage to famous unknown poets and their existential last stands at the Alamo, to words and word endings, word beginnings, word salads, Canadian Air Force exercising his craft and celebrating people who work in words while moving from dead ends to flying without a flight plan to transcendence.

David Spicer’s poems are true.

Available on Amazon.

Cover art by Nancy Clift Spicer