John Higgs

John Higgs
Born John Higgs
Wales
Occupation Author
Journalist
Cultural Commentator
Website www.johnhiggs.com

John Higgs is an English writer, novelist, journalist and cultural historian. The work of Higgs has been published in the form of novels (under the pseudonym JMR Higgs), biographies and works of cultural history.[1]

In particular, Higgs has written about the so-called counterculture, exemplified by writers, artists and activists such as Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, Alan Moore and the British group The KLF.

Career

Higgs began as a director of children’s television[2] before going on to create and produce the BBC Radio 4 quiz X Marks the Spot. At Climax Group studios he was videogame producer[3] for games that appeared on Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube[4] including Crash 'n' Burn[5] and ATV Quad Power Racing[6]

As a journalist, Higgs has written for The Guardian[7], The Independent[8], The Daily Mirror[9] and Mojo magazine.

As an author, Higgs has written the novels The First Church on the Moon and The Brandy of the Damned; biographies of Timothy Leary and The KLF; and works of history and cultural analysis.[10]

Robert Anton Wilson, Illuminatus! and Cosmic Trigger

In his 2013 book, KLF, Higgs’s interest in the American counter culture writer Robert Anton Wilson led to him writing about the stage play version of Wilson’s The Illuminatus Trilogy! books as directed by Ken Campbell and which were performed at the National Theatre in 1977. During Higgs’s research, he interviewed Campbell’s wife, the actress Prunella Gee, and learned that their daughter, Daisy Eris Campbell, was at the time thinking about staging a theatrical version of Wilson's Cosmic Trigger. Higgs supported and championed the production of the play with various talks around the country and the play was eventually staged in Liverpool and London in 2014[11][12][13] and staged again at The Cockpit Theatre in London in 2017[14][15][16]

Higgs involvement in the Cosmic Trigger play led to Robert Anton Wilson's estate - the Robert Anton Wilson Trust - to ask him to write an introduction for a new edition of Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati, published by the Wilson estate's new imprint, Hilaritas Press, in 2016.[17]

Books

Biographies and history

  • Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century - (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016)[20]
  • The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds - (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2013)[21]
  • I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary - (The Friday Project, 2006)[22]
  • Our Pet Queen: A New Perspective on Monarchy - (Signal, 2014)[23]

Fictional works as JMR Higgs

  • The First Church on the Moon - (The Big Hand Books, 2013)[24]
  • The Brandy of the Damned - (The Big Hand Books, 2012)[25]

Contributor

  • Cosmic Trigger - The Final Secret of the Illuminati - Introduction by John Higgs - (Hilaritas Press, 2016)

References

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