Zak Ferguson describes himself as “an autistic experimental author, living in Brighton, UK, and co-founder (along with fiancée Laura-Jane Marshall) of the innovative, boundary-pushing Sweat Drenched Press.” In addition to his editorial duties—which include everything from reading submissions to formatting the books to designing the covers—he spends his spare time reviewing books and films for the video-based podcast, Articulate Warbling. He also creates experimental videos and explores ways to “expand the syntax of how autism relates to the function of expression and writing, forever delving into the ontological depths of diversity” in his work.
The author of 12 books—fiction and nonfiction—Zak Ferguson is something of a dynamo. Of his work, Seb Doubinsky, author of Missing Signal and The Invisible, says it is “like letting an electric virus invade your central nervous system. Nothing is left intact.” Jared Pappas Kelley, author of Solvent Form, adds “Zak Ferguson’s work confuses me on the deepest levels—and I would not have it any other way … It is writing that burns itself.” And Grant Maierhofer, whose most recent book is Ebb, just published by KERNPUNKT Press, describes Ferguson’s The System Compendium as “far and away the most ambitious thing I can remember reading for some time … Maximalist to the hilt and as expressive as a gob of milky spit in the face of a court-ordered psychiatrist, this is a book to live with and with, an author to keep close.”
This email conversation took place from January 26 – February 8, 2023, and reflects not only Zak Ferguson’s take on experimentation, autism, and a host of other topics, it also reflects the exuberance which characterizes how he thinks and how he expresses himself. There are, as you will note, variances in grammar and, occasionally, spelling. These are neither accidental nor intentional. As Zak explains when questioned about these inconsistencies: “I know, awesome isn’t it? I have no master, whilst I have no clue.”
Zak is currently at work on a multimedia project dealing with his autism and involving dozens of texts. For more about him and Sweat Drenched Press, visit the website. To view his experimental films, watch his YouTube channel for Sweat Drenched Press.
Patrick Parks: Your books and the books you publish are labeled “experimental,” which is a fairly wide net to cast. If you were asked to define “experimental literature”—which you are, at this moment, being asked to do—what would you say it is?
Zak Ferguson: Not all of Sweat Drenched Press’ books are experimental, which is something I am gutted to admit. I feel the majority of experimental fiction coming from our Press is solely from me, myself and only I.
Which is something I want to change, but sadly there isn’t money or skin in the game in experimental art and if an experimental artist comes into this thinking that they’ll be on supermarket/superstores, let alone books store shelves, they need to have a severe discussion with either their muse, self, or maybe even deeper, their id.
It is for the sake of art and creation and pushing the form forward, for me. It is something that is in constant flux. Going on and on, the more the artist tries to break the new ground.
Experimental fiction cannot be cornered and demanded to explain itself, either. It has similitude with other genres and scenes and “beats”, it can be anything, everything, and also nothing.
Experimental art can be placed alongside certain art, that has been labelled as such, because that is where it can omly seemingly placed at the door of, whether in literature or in the cinematic realm or in various artistic mediums. Experimental art is a solid thing, a moment spread throughout many other moments in time, seen as object, it isn’t liquid, where it exists in its own subpocket of time and can be recognised. Certain traits, artistic touches become recognisable forms of many artistic endeavours, in the name of experimentation.
But, to me, outside of the recognisable, it has a long history, an ever-revolving and evolving status, where the popular genres are ambered into their tropes and form.
With experimental art, there are various sub-strands. It is part of the avant-garde scene, and it isn’t part of that. Let us take experimental fiction as an underground niche crowd, the types whose art isn’t appreciated in the now, but it will hopefully leave its mark in years, decades, and generations forward.
For me, experimental is a means to evolve, test, play, innovating the hyper-structure of literature; in typography, design, purpose, and overall in its intent. Too much can be read into experimental art, which is the fun of it. Experimental art is about pushing forward, but there are those that have entered the scene where they approach it like a refined form. It isn’t solid. It is liquid and it is unmaneuverable. Academicians and scholars will take it as a basis for a paper and the artist from the great beyond will be giggling. I’ve written gobbledegook and had readers imbue it with a dense meaning, that I so adore. The writer isn’t always in the know.
PP: And what made you opt for this kind of writing over something more traditional?
ZF: Because I can’t express any other way. I hate structure and form. I like chaos. Mess. I am iconoclastic in many ways but cherish experimental art in the same vein that those part of the established literary circle loathe us. I want freedom of expression and I want a better understanding of un-traditional methods. The rules haven’t ever meant much to me. Maybe it is my autistic self, or my autistic muse or alter ego, or my essence. To convey the unconventional and diversity inherent in my DNA. Experimental art is by nature diverse, and spastic, rooted in a complex webwork of contradictions and blemishes. I feel experimental art is extremely autistic.
PP: I like the provocation of your remarks here, the challenges, and I wonder if you could address a couple of those. First, you state that you strive to “push the form forward,” which suggests the necessity for a form. What might be an example of a form in fiction that provides you with an obstacle to move?
ZF: Stating experimental fiction is there to push a form forward is a bland, short explanation. Form to me is a structure to adhere to. It is something as I’ve gotten older, mayhap matured as a writer, strived to try, and I can’t do it. My mind, the way I type, express, convey, is different, it is autistic, and my work is extremely autistic. It is a creative non-linearity, in a linear environment, trying to push, explode, tap into the undiscovered; autism have select stereotypical traits and clichés, which have names, labels, but autism is very non-binary. It is corrosive. It is hectic. It is unattainable by those outside of this neurological condition. No one but the creative can tune into this wavelength.
Autistic people are accessing that of which a potential outsider, who on the surface may claim disinterest, a remove, a disbelief in my autistic philosophy, they won’t and can’t access it nor understand it.
By pushing the form forward, I am trying to highlight that genre, classic literature, everything we are brainwashed into adhering and enabling, throughout life is the form – the mainstream, the narrative, the plot, form. That is what I mean by form. Form, to me, is a beginning, middle, and an end, with the juicy in-between. I would love to be able to write a straightforward narrative, but I can’t, so instead of trying to get in line, adhere, and be classified, I want to take advantage of something that’s offered and others can’t capture. I want to be the outsider on my own terms. Instead of delivering something that will be sneered at and rejected, I want to ostracize myself before the majority can. Self-preservation and autistic stubbornness. It is also a creative place to protect myself.
My process is anger, confusion, agitation, and bewilderment; alternative perspectives, and looking at the world in a warped fashion. The form cannot be maintained by myself, so I break into it, I expose it, I scientifically break it down. Pretentious, right? Well, that’s how I see it. How I process. I push it forward, outside of what a talented, skilled writer can do. My work can be seen as gimmicky or mess. Well, good. It’s breaking the mold then, isn’t it?
So, what I meant was to push it away from the established function/form of literature. I mean, it is never as concrete or solid as various genres are. I am hoping to make it known that experimental fiction is changing perceptions. That or has a possibility to doing so. That is necessary to my continuation in this experimental creative vein. It is taking the flexible, gelatinous non-form and making an example out of it. It isn’t meant to be easy, digestible, or, this may seem weird to say/type, unreadable. It is about essence. Self-imbuement. Self-projection. Take the pretentious or seemingly trite and imbue it with purpose. It is meant to be anti. Experimental works on dream logic bandwidths. Many experimental works are unforgivable, and readers of experimental fiction fall out of love with it, grow tired of it, seemingly falling out of love. I know I don’t enjoy experimental fiction as much as I used to, but I can’t write any other way.
Is it sad that someone may read my work and feel the same thing—those falling out of love with it, totally out of love and dissatisfied and unforgivable? Good, bad, sad, it is par for the course, I guess.
PP: Secondly, and this is a big question, no doubt needing further follow-ups, you state that “experimental art is extremely autistic.” Can you comment on that description, particularly in regard to how you feel your autism shapes your work?
ZF: Autism has been a thing that all of my life I’ve fought against. I didn’t want to have this oddness, this socially unacceptable thing, mutated into various tendrils, to be labelled. When I accepted it, I was whole. Also, my work improved. I didn’t try to prolong the inevitable, I didn’t question my method of expression. Writing without limit or rules. The more I established these methods, the more I didn’t second guess myself, I was free. I expressed better, these things that overwhelmed and still do were developed, expanded, took a form I knew could perhaps entertain, educate, and encourage people to be their utter whole creative selves. People feel my attitudes are iconoclastic, rebellious, and provocative, and I am. But, not to a negative standard. I believe the world is trapped, in a fugue state of acceptability, to not question anything. To stay in line and not to think outside the box, especially socially and creatively. I’m also emotional, extremely emotional. I’m not good with my feelings. Maybe I am abrupt and seem to face the world as if it is against me and ready for provocation and opposition, but I much prefer to be ready and in wait, then be knocked to the floor with no time to ensure I don’t land on my face. I dare to dare others to disagree, because that’s where great discussions and topics can be made and then tapped into.
I’m ready for a fight. Always. A debate. A creative engagement. But the fight doesn’t need to be brutal; it can be fun. It can be like the pie fight in the bunker, cut from the film Doctor Strangelove. It can be emotional, expansive. It can be experimental. It can come in the shape of a book. Playfulness and my earnestness is also key to expanding the literary field.
My latest release, Exteriors for An Autistic Mind, actually has 3 different titles, which nobody has picked up on, yet! The front cover title, the title page title, and an additional title page before the book starts. This is proof that people gloss over things, and I sometimes don’t give too much of themselves to a written piece, and this is where I have to deliberately berate the reader, that or fuck with the internal texts grammatical and aesthetical shape and dimension, an anarchy to signify that this book is doing far more than that of which is on the surface and being highlighted for the reader.
This provocation-ary way is from my childhood, my trauma, my awful upbringing, and life experiences, exacerbated by my inability to break down information and experience like a neuro-typical person can.
I feel deeper than others. Many autistic people do, on the higher or lower functioning score board, we just don’t k ow how to react and compose. Autisms center is expression, a blockade to express normally. People don’t believe autistic people can express sympathy, that or passion, or emotion like others. I can, but to the umph degree. My mode of expression is done creatively. Because I’m not capable of dealing with the most mundane things in life.
PP: You have talked about your role as an experimental writer, but I’m wondering about your role as a publisher. Sweat Drenched Press was recognized at the end of last year for publishing Paracelsus by Kenji Siratori. I have made a couple of attempts at reading the book and will continue to find a way into the very dense text, but, as a publisher, do you see an audience for a book as opaque in its use of language as this one?
ZF: My role as publisher is still growing to this day, two years and a bit later. Initially I was editor, book-builder, sometimes cover creator—but, all the admin stuff, you know the boring business-related stuff I couldn’t do and didn’t want to do.
Selfish really, as I was keeping the fun stuff of making a Press solely for myself. Laura loves all of that side of things, but she has gone on to edit books all on her own, create covers for myself and other artists, and is as good, if not better, at making books than I am. Which I still to this day do not think I am.
I have always loved to have an open conversational flow with the artists/author, an almost philosophical editorial bond – a creative director of sorts, resident waxer of the lyrical views… but, as I’ve grown, I have entertained too many who seem to only want that side of things; my attention, my praise, my time, my patience, and luckily I have distanced that over the past few years. I have no time to babysit people’s egos and sense of selves – not to the degree some people expect and want and need.
For me, though we are a small press, if you have come to my and Laura’s Press, to put out a book, I expect as much work and passion to be put into the submission as I do putting out the book. Do not go in and expect a publisher to create a submission for you, that isn’t fair, and I have learnt from experience. Also, do a little bit of research behind the Press instead of cold-submitting a Press. So…things that I usually defer to my real-life partner, who co-owns/runs SDP, I am now doing, and comfortable with doing. The business side of things, the administrative was not my forte, but now, I am enjoying it, because sadly, Laura doesn’t have much time any longer for the Press, due to her day job, and all responsibilities related to that.
I am personally very proud of that book, Paracelsus, and I love the cover I wrangled together. I love the work and I love the writer. I’m also glad to read that we were/are being recognized for Kenji’s release.
Without going into statistics, for SDP, it’s been a tremendous success. Someone like Kenji comes in and elevates a Press, the same thing has recently been replicated with Andrew C. Wenaus’ Declarations of the Technical Word As Such:: A One Act Play. Two great guys, on the same level as to what they’re doing with literature and the book’s form.
I love Paracelsus mainly because I am a huge fan of Kenji Siratori’s work, and when he asked if I’d take it as a sub, I was hesitant, as it’s a moment of – DO NOT MEET YOUR HEROES, and I was a little on edge about continuing on with Sweat Drenched Press; then I read it and loved it.
Certain authors and works submitted can only do that for me. I can put out two books by N. Casio Poe, within 48 to 58 hours, because he is (a) so easy to work with, same with Kenji on his release, (b) faith and trust in what I can do for a piece is key. With a bond and union like this, a book can be fully edited and made. Is that bad for the Press? Is that too quick? Is that amateurish? – well, yeah, but at least this amateur version of publishing looks good, right?
The methodology of many of our books is akin to that of some sweaty, crusty punk-rocker, with delusions of grandeur, and access to free paper and a printer, and many staples and stapler – making little zines, in their basement, making pamphlets; all except with me I’m putting out “professional” books. What people need to know about Kenji is, he sticks to his resolve and transcends it. When I enquired about where to send his royalties, he said, “Keep them, to help the Press” and Andrew also offered the same even before submitting. That is solidarity and brotherhood. They are happy enough to get their contribution copies (which Kenji hasn’t had yet, due to customs keep sending them back to me over and over, as you may well know from your own experience) and to have people read them. Kenji is all about progression, support, dehumanisation of a very human thing – language and art. Anyone who is familiar with Kenji will dig it, and if they’re new, they’ll experience an awakening or a headache.
PP: And, to build on something you said earlier regarding your own work, is the story, the narrative in an experimental piece, as important as some other connections with the text, the design, the book as an object?
ZF: Story isn’t key. Not at all to me. I wish it was. That is why I am stepping away from experimental writing. That method, that whole preamble and all its affectations need to be neglected, squashed, ignored, for me to go onto trying to complete my genre pieces. Segments, fragments, vignettes of humanity are in my work. There is always a human in there. Whether it is me or a version of a version that has been perverted, it is still from a human place. Though wild and gonzo-like my characters are, there are characteristics, that or a recognizable personality to work from—like most characters they’re interpretational, and that is enough, to ground the reader, than adhere to the POINT A to POINT B to POINT C that a storyline provides. Non-linear storytelling in a visual medium is not a new thing, but in a novel, it is still treated as either taboo or genre-bending or unique, depending on the writer and his or her or their credentials. When, for me, it is simple enough—the writer doesn’t want to stay in the lines. He wants to take detours. He doesn’t want to jump from one scene to the next in a linear fashion. For me, the more wonky, eschewed variation it is from the outset, the better. You know what you’re getting yourself into.
On The Blink for me is a linear story, perhaps my most linear/only linear novel that only transverses the non-linear through the character’s delusions and hallucinations. Through his madness we experience everything we are told shouldn’t be encouraged in fiction, unless there is an affirmed basis, hence descriptions of hallucinations or split personalities. When in fact, I know that what is written is true. It is literal. A split, confused identity, exposed via the typewriter, or laptop, and the environment around the narrator. Also, all I have written is a lie. The narrator isn’t experiencing any of this—when he actually is; it isn’t a delusion, or a hallucination, it is fiction. A fictional place to experience and luxuriate and go through various emotions that he or I can’t replicate or take on, as he feels others do. That is how I feel with my autism. I want some of that, but I’ll go about it in my own way. The narrator of On The Blink is everyone, whilst no one.
My characters are always larger than life or facsimiles of different versions of myself, I think. I mean, what writer isn’t part of his own world(s) and words? It IS a version of a version that is twisted. Distorted. Or a real living embodiment, a person I know or saw, in my creative mind’s-eye. Fiction to me, in my head is far more honest than the truth—so, these characters are always overlapping – perhaps stemming from one sole cortex – those I have come into contact with, or those I wish to write, because I feel these kinds of characters haven’t been written before. That in of itself is a lie. Nothing is truly original and if you believe that you are truly out of sync with what we are told is reality. Writers are liars. Some good. Some bad. Some ugly.
PP: In addition to writing and publishing, you’re also very active in making films and creating soundscapes. How do these various artistic endeavors fit together, if at all?
ZF: They are all related. It all goes to the heart of my experimental works. Glitch of the human condition and psyche and mind. My mind is not programmed like others – a few screws are loose, but replaced by them is a creativity and nodule to make up for it. The autistic experience, via visuals and sound is something I feel hasn’t been done before or tapped into. I enjoy the process. It is white noise against everything. I am in and with this project. I am evolving and devolving with it. Do I want to make bigger projects, and one’s that are not too dissimilar to the works of a Craig Baldwin? Fuck yes!
But what I do does seems to satisfy something in me that writing hasn’t been able to do, recently.
My dream project would be to direct a Transformers movie. A splashy, noisy, bombastic, CGI-romp, where I out-Bay Michael Bay. I can’t do that. I can barely write & direct and get a bunch of “friends” (real-life ones I have very few of) together to make a short; so I work with what I got. What I got isn’t much. A cheap movie-making app on my phone and fuck tons of existing footage that I cut, mutilate and evolve to fit my needs, and with experimental, low-fi filmmaking this is all I can do. It is funny, this footage, whether directed or of mere documentation, all the work has been done for you, but you are enlivening it and recreating; like collage, but in motion, and I love that.
A lot of the imaginary I do seems repetitive, and hypnogogic and dreamy, sometimes seemly fit-inducing, each frame is different, in contrast, image placement, how to alter the image over and over, until it takes on a new perspective or rationale. Repetitive, but always new, in their framing, ratio, speed, velocity, and what kinds of soundscapes or narration I have written around it. It is very fluid, scatological in making, but, like my writing, inherently there is no doubt an obsessive quality, to ensure it feels right. All mistakes, which these types of projects, like writing, can only produce are forgivable and tangible and necessary to the finished piece. I spent years on three novels, now released as one big compendium, entitled The System Compendium, and I spent more time trying to find a symmetry of typos and errors than tidying it up; then I spent many years altering how it looked—excising stuff, then putting it back in, then building—I build more than I cut—I also retain original drafts, in one sole draft, I do not cut up, in the Cut-Up Method style, but more on a Cut-Up consciousness level. I edited too long on that book; looking at it now, I feel I lost its original flow and essence—a big book, with nice interiors, but the writing I dislike, because it is evidential that I focused on solidity and form, then went, “Oh fuck it…gobbledygook AAAAAAAAAWAAAAAY!” – to only end up treating errors and the typography like a grape-expert might before deciding to try his hand at making wine. It is a hodgepodge of mess, decent prose, great visuals, but a lot of wasted time, effort and money.
On the film side, give me a budget of 5 million, I would go out and make my version of the Evil Dead 2 or a small indie sci-fi movie like Benson & Moorhead make. I get more satisfaction from my visual works, and soundscapes because they’re always born from a place of “I WANNA DO THAT!” and as is often the case, they do not go the way I initially thought/hoped for them, and instead of feeling annoyed or useless, limp and morose at my talentlessness, I try to make the best of it and embrace the errors, treat them as integral to the piece. Much like my writing, my intended destination is never reached, but it is all about the journey.
PP: In an earlier response, you said, “I know I don’t enjoy experimental fiction as much as I used to, but I can’t write any other way.” Would it be fair to say that your recent decision to stepping away from writing is, in part, due to your dissatisfaction with this form?
ZF: I am not retiring in any way, I am just verbalizing, espousing that it is okay to take a break from that of which is driving you mad. I’m not enjoying writing like I am making sounds and low-fi-shite shorts. So, please, no, do not see it like that; it isn’t a retirement, it’s a prolonged and almost forced-upon break.
I have not gone a year in the past four years without putting out something of my own. I realize not everything I write or make needs to be shown or shared. Like my idol George Lucas, I am doing it for myself, and maybe in the process might fall in love with it, or something else entirely.
I have seen far too many indie writers and mainstream big shots (Quentin Tarantino has been going on about his retirement since 2001) go out on their social media platforms and type up about their immanent retirement, though, never actually show any sign of stopping what they’re doing. It is all for likes and disingenuous appraisal, appraisal that isn’t earned, all the “NOOOOO, do not stop, we love your work!” I wasn’t looking for that and hate that it might be construed like that. I did it as an affirmative, (without any delusions people give two flying fucks if I live or die/write/or cry) that I will never stop writing, ever. That is my thing. But, I mean to take a break from experimental writing. Focus on getting some books read, films watched and reviewed. I want to flex my muscles a bit, and to do that I need to shun that which I love. I also feel in my writing, I have said what I need to say.
On The Blink, though obviously experimental, to me is pure science-fiction, just with a more wayward way of portraying the various science-fiction elements. I want to write sci-fi books, one’s that Michael Moorcock or Brian Aldiss or Arkady and Boris Strugatsky might have liked, that or blurbed.
Will they see the light of day? I have little to no clue, but I enjoy writing them. Experimental art is autistic by nature, so, I am in principle wishing to get away from myself. And to do that is to indulge in as many books, comics/graphic-novels and films/series as I can get into my system. To escape. Am I trying to escape myself? Not totally, but enough that I can rest some hyper-driven creative side of me that wants to put out messy, archaic novels. No retirement, just a mellowing, marinating time. I need to be inspired to want to write. And, I am not feeling too inspired, on a experimental level, as I used to. Saying that, I have just published two highly experimental books by Andrew and Kenji respectively – which give me faith in that side of expanding literature. What they do, I cannot do, nor do I wish to try to do. That is their thing. My thing now is getting fatter, unhealthier…no, wait, that’s wrong…I need to get fitter, and healthier, and I need to stop moaning, and get to making the remainder of the books we have lined up for SDP. I think I am at a stage of no return, then an email arrives where N. Casio Poe sends me two extremely messed up, transgressive, hilariously sleazy books that I smash out as products within 48 hours of them hitting my email.
Patrick Parks is author of a novel, Tucumcari, and has had fiction, poetry, reviews, and interviews appear or forthcoming in a number of places, including Change Seven, Ocotillo Review, Bridge Eight, Full Stop, Southeast Review, Six Sentences, The Millions, Another Chicago Magazine, Heavy Feather Review, Grey Sparrow, Sledgehammer, OxMag, and elsewhere. He lives with his wife near Chicago. For more: patrick-parks.com.
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