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The River that led to the First Heathen Original…

April 1, 2026 Heathenry

As published in Life Stands Explained by C.J. Carew:  One hundred and one . . . 101. That’s how many months separate the official publication dates of the first Heathen Edition (December 15, 2017) and this first Heathen Original (May 15, 2026). I wish I could say that we planned it that way from the…

Heathenry: Thoughts on The Monkey-Banana Reduction

March 4, 2026 Heathenry

As published in “The Monkey-Banana Reduction (Heathen Short)”:  We’ll hop straight to it with a transcribed excerpt from a recent conference call we Heathens had with Watson Thomas and Sheboygan Minnetonka:   Heathen Shorts: (terrible British accent) Oi! What’s all this, then? Watson Thomas: Well, here we go— Sheboygan Minnetonka: Please speak with that accent…

Haste is from the devil.

September 26, 2023 Heathenry

As published in Whispering Dust (Heathen Edition):  While researching another Heathen Edition, we happened upon the title of this book — Whispering Dust — and were immediately intrigued. Enough so that we sought out the book and, after reading the first few chapters, found ourselves delightfully charmed by its humor and poeticism. Who was Eldrid…

“It’s like Brubaker before Brubaker.”

April 30, 2023 Heathenry

As published in Within Prison Walls (Heathen Edition):  “It’s like Brubaker before Brubaker,” is how we Heathens have described this book to those curious. Surely, if you’re interested in or have read this book before, then you’re aware of the 1980 film Brubaker starring Robert Redford as the eponymous Henry Brubaker, who has just been…

The why of Canada Blackie is a puzzle of details.

March 30, 2023 Heathenry

As published in The Story of Canada Blackie (Heathen Edition):  Overture? We’ll explain in a moment, but first: what began as a simple, straightforward Heathen Edition slowly turned into a research rabbit hole whose accumulation of details began to paint a more tragic picture the deeper we went. To read Anne P. L. Field’s The…

My Life in Prison is one of the wildest books…

March 25, 2023 Heathenry

As published in My Life in Prison (Heathen Edition):  This book is without a doubt one of the wildest I’ve ever read. Donald Lowrie’s simple, matter-of-fact delivery of events as they transpired within the walls of San Quentin only amplifies their consistent absurdity and often brutality, and the narrative is full to the brim with…

The Iron Republic: An “unusually interesting” story . . .

March 24, 2023 Heathenry

As published in The Iron Republic (Heathen Edition):  We’re in agreement with The Tampa Tribune: this is an “unusually interesting” story—for several reasons. First, its general setup is, in some ways, similar to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Land That Time Forgot, which would arrive 16 years after this story, but whereas Burroughs ventures into Antarctic…

I thought of Zane Grey as: Louis L’Amour, but wordier.

March 12, 2023 Heathenry

As published in Riders of the Purple Sage (Heathen Edition):  Every red-blooded 20th-century American boy at some point wanted to be a cowboy. It was an unspoken rite of passage. Somehow someway someone eventually exposed us to a western and when our imaginations seized that moment playtime was never the same. For myself and my…

This little volume was the first. . .

January 24, 2023 Heathenry

As published in The Raven with Literary and Historical Commentary (Heathen Edition):  This little volume was the first to place Edgar Allan Poe’s greatest poem The Raven (published in 1845) under a microscope and collect, analyze, and report its varied effect on the literary world at large. While others have since labored to the same…

Let Us Preface — Take Two

December 23, 2022 Heathenry

As published in The King in Yellow (Second Heathen Edition)  “What is a Heathen Edition? And why are you holding one now?” It’s been five years since I began our first ever Heathenry with those two questions. Five: that’s how old we are today, as I write this. When I asked those two questions to…