About Sven

A serious thinker with the spirit of a mischievous sprite...
-Trebor Healey, author of Sweet Son of Pan

Sven Davisson is the founding editor of Ashé! Journal of Experimental Spirituality. and the publisher of Rebel Satori Press and its imprint Queer Mojo.

He received a degree in LGBT Studies (Critical Theory/Photography) with a minor in Art History/Photography from Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts. He studied photography under former Photo League member and noted American realist Jerome Liebling and documentary folklorist Carrie Mae Weems.

A pioneer of rebel publishing, Sven co-founded the small, yet ground-breaking zine mektoub, which he produced from 1989 to 1995.

In addition to Ashé Journal and mektoub, Sven's work has appeared in Abrasax: Journal of Magick and Decadence, Velvet Mafia, The New Aeon, sneerzine, Lambda Book Report and the books The Starry Dynamo, Madder Love: Queer Men and the Precincts of Surrealism, I Do/I Don't: Queers On Marriage, Directions: Faith & Friends and High Clouds Soaring Storms Driving Low. (See complete list of publications)

A collection of material from the first year of the journal, Ashé: Selections from the Journal of Experimental Spirituality, has been released by Mandrake of Oxford. Copies are available from Ashé Journal and Mandrake of Oxford. They also will be available from Amazon, Amazon UK, other international Amazon sites, Barnes &n Noble (bn.com) and your local independent bookseller.

Summer 2004, Blackberry Books published a collection edited by Sven of short stories by best-selling Maine authors Ruth Moore (his great-aunt) and Eleanor Mayo. Moore was a bestselling author, known for her accurate portrayal of the 'real Maine.' Her seventeen books include the novelsThe Weir, Spoonhandle, A Walk Down Main Street and Speak to the Winds. Mayo, her life-long companion, was also an accomplished writer whose five published novels include Turn Home, Forever Strangers and October Fire. The collection, When Foley Craddock Tore Off My Grandfather's Thumb is available here. (Views: Front Cover; Back Cover.)

A collection of Sven's writing The Starry Dynamo: The Machinery of Night Remixed was released by Rebel Satori Press in January 2007. His short story "Dim Star Descried" appears in Peter Dubé's anthology Madder Love: Queer Men and the Precincts of Surrealism (Rebel Satori, 2008).

Sven was born in Maine, the seventh generation descendent of the area's original European settlers. He lives with his partner, three dogs and an opinionated cat on an island along Maine's Downeast Coast.

Read an interview in the ezine PAN.OR.RA.MA.

Social Networking...

Press...

On "Dim Star Descried" in Madder Love

...a beautiful pitch-perfect literary urban fantasy... —Rainbow Reviews

On The Starry Dynamo

The bastard lovechild of William Burroughs and Aleister Crowley—or was he spawned of an orgy involving Rajneesh, Pan, Ginsberg, Foucault and a dozen or so of Burroughs North African wildboys?—Davisson’s vision is a rich distillation of subversive thought. Tribal, mythic, punk and anarchic, he is a serious thinker with the spirit of a mischievous sprite.
—Trebor Healey, author of Sweet Son of Pan

This is an interesting and—to use Davisson’s own term, experimental—book that deserves to be read, written by an important character in the long term history of Gay consciousness.
—Toby Johnson in White Crane Journal

The Starry Dynamo is a compelling and seductive collection. Sven Davisson’s work is erotic, haunting, spiritual and unafraid to take chances. A bold and riveting book."
—Emanuel Xavier editor of Bullets & Butterflies and author of Christlike

An incredibly versatile religious scholar with a unique mind and equally complex personality...
—Raul Canizares, author of Cuban Santeria: Walking With the Night

On Ashé Journal

ASHE journal is the most relevant and interesting occult journal nowadays... -PAN.OR.RA.MA

All in all, Ashé is an interesting and wide ranging journal. Written from an experiential point of view the majority of works are reflective, insightful or inductive of further interest. The decision to give a voice to those not usually heard and to incorporate issues which are normally seen as 'taboo' within mainstream spiritual circles, or which incorporate unusual analysis makes it both an exciting, brave and challenging work. —philhine.org.uk (read full review)

On When Foley Craddock Tore Off My Grandfather's Thumb

I once lamented the fact that Ruth Moore’s short fiction had been lost-and-forgotten. No longer, and this wonderful book is treasure beyond treasure, as far as a lot of us Moore-ites are concerned. From the introduction (READ IT, Don’t argue: read it) straight through to Mayo’s even-longer-forgotten gems, it’s a delight. This is the way short stories about a place oughta be wrote, guys… never mind the minimalist eye-to-the-keyhole stuff, this is the real thing. It is very fashionable to sneer at ‘old-fashioned-magazine-ficiton’ these days. Ruth Moore didn’t give much of a rolling d..arn about fashion–she was her own person with her own voice in her own place. And one helluva storyteller to boot. —The Courier-Gazette (Rockland)

Readers are the beneficiaries of the ardent editorial hours of Sven Davisson, a nephew of Ruth Moore and the literary executive [sic] of the estate of both women, and Gary Lawless and his Blackberry Press. -Maine Sunday Telegram

Edited and eloquently introduced by Ms. Moore’s grand-nephew Sven Davisson, this collection of stories such as the title tale, “When Foley Craddock Tore Off My Grandfather’s Thumb,” or “How Come You’re Picking My Violets?” or “Aids to the Unwary” are variously funny, poignant or outrageous, but always have such a ring of truth to them... —The Bar Harbor Times

Kudos to Blackberry Books for the revival it continues to fuel. —Bangor Daily News