When the nameless young man in Mark Katzman’s novel M7 arrives at the vast and mysterious Library of U-City, he enters a world where words are sacred, books breathe with hidden power, and memory itself is both a map and a trap. The journey that unfolds is not just a literary adventure, it’s a reflection of Katzman’s own life as an author, musician, and experimental artist who has spent decades searching for new ways to tell stories that matter.
Katzman, based in Athens, Georgia, is no ordinary novelist. His career stretches across books, music, plays, underground zines, and visual art. He has interviewed cultural icons, published experimental artist books now held in museum collections, and composed psychedelic music with the same restless curiosity that infuses his prose. M7, published in 2024 by Spaceboy Books, may be his most ambitious work yet: a surreal, witty, and mind-expanding meditation on what it means to preserve meaning in an age that seems intent on erasing it.
“It’s not about finding answers,” Katzman told me. “It’s about asking deeper questions.”
Kansas City Star, April 23, 1990
Mark Katzman, Provincetown, MA, 1985
Early Life and Creative Beginnings
Katzman grew up immersed in the countercultural tides of the late 20th century, a world where art and philosophy collided with politics and personal discovery. His creative beginnings came from a single spark, what he refers to on his Wikipedia page as a “transformational experience” at 22. He had never written creatively before nor has he ceased creating since. In 1996 he became Music Editor of the iconic psychedelic magazine, Mondo 2000, interviewing musicians Robyn Hitchcock and William Orbit. Other interviews have included cultural figures Timothy Leary (Zavetone, Japan 1996) and Stanley Kunitz (for the American Museum of Natural History’s website, Imagine, Nature, which he coordinated). These encounters gave him an unusually broad canvas: equal parts literature, psychedelia, and cultural commentary.
That ethos has carried him through decades of experimentation, from his museum-collected artist books INoN and Along the Way to his collaborative albums Prairie Fields and Tomahawk. His philosophy is simple: creativity is a way of being alive, and the best art resists easy definition.
The Making of M7
The seeds of M7 came from Katzman’s fascination with the act of preservation. What happens when knowledge is locked away, and who gets to decide which truths endure? In the novel, the Library of U-City looms like a living character: a maze of archives, sacred texts, psychedelic light clusters, and hidden chambers holding millions of green vials dating back 150,000 years.
Katzman drew partly from his own experiences in archives and libraries, where the act of organizing memory feels almost spiritual. “A library is never neutral,” he explains. “It’s a battleground between what is remembered and what is forgotten.”
Literary influences echo throughout the book. Kafka’s sense of absurdity, Beckett’s bleak humor, and Borges’s fascination with labyrinths all find new life in Katzman’s pages. Yet M7 is no imitation. Its prose is playful, its settings are dreamlike, and its humor sparkles even in the darkest passages.
The writing process was both grueling and exhilarating. Katzman admits there were times he considered abandoning the project. “There were days the words felt like static,” he recalls. “And then there were days when everything clicked, when the language itself pulled me forward.”
The result is a book that feels at once ancient and futuristic, sacred and profane. As one reviewer described it: “M7 is destined to become the premier psychedelic guidebook for anyone who ever wondered if punctuation could save the world.”
Athens Uncharted co-founders, Bowen Craig
and Mark Katzman, VoyageATL Magazine, March 9, 2023
Meet co-founders Bowen Craig and Mark Katzman of Athens Uncharted
The Creative Philosophy
Unlike many authors who rely on outlines and rigid structures, Katzman writes organically, following images and voices as they appear. “I don’t plan,” he says. “I discover.”
This process is deeply tied to the role psychedelia plays in his creativity, not just as a theme but as a lens. For Katzman, psychedelia is both metaphor and method, a way to break down linear thought and invite readers into a multidimensional experience.
His journalism and music inform his literary imagination as well. The rhythms of sound, the unpredictability of live performance, and the candid exchanges of interviews all find their way into his sentences. “Writing isn’t separate from music or art,” he insists. “It’s all part of the same conversation.”
Personal Journey and Impact
Looking back, Katzman admits that struggles have often shaped him more than successes. Rejections, dead-ends, and creative frustrations became turning points. “Failure is fertile ground,” he says. “It forces you to ask why you’re really doing this.”
His work with Athens Uncharted and Mondo 2000 also shaped his belief that independent voices matter most. Legacy, for Katzman, is not about fame or permanence but about connection. “If my work wakes one person up, if it gives one person permission to think differently, then I’ve done my job.”
That sense of responsibility is why Katzman continues to experiment. His upcoming projects include an audiobook version of his novel Home, read by the author himself, and ongoing musical collaborations. He is also expanding Athens Uncharted as a platform for emerging voices.
The Message of M7
So what does Katzman hope readers take away from M7? Above all, he wants them to feel unsettled in the best possible way. “Humor, confusion, awe, whatever they feel, I want them to realize that reality is more flexible than they’ve been told.”
Success, for Katzman, is no longer defined by sales charts or mainstream validation. “Success is being true to the work,” he says. “It’s finding your tribe of readers who are willing to take the journey with you.”
To younger writers who feel out of place in traditional systems, his advice is blunt but encouraging: “Don’t wait for permission. Don’t dilute your voice. The world doesn’t need more of the same. It needs what only you can say.”
Psychedelic Science Conference, Denver, CO,
June 17-21, 2025
A Literary Legacy in the Making
With M7, Katzman has crafted more than a novel. He has built a labyrinth that readers can wander for years, a psychedelic cathedral of words that challenges the boundaries of genre. In doing so, he affirms his place in the lineage of literary disruptors, those who refuse to settle for easy answers and instead dare us to question everything.
In an age of fleeting content and disposable culture, Katzman’s work reminds us of the enduring power of the written word. Like the Library in his novel, it demands preservation. Like the young man at its center, it insists that we keep searching.
As Katzman himself puts it: “Every book is a portal. The question is, are you willing to step through?”
Explore more of Mark Katzman’s world:
- Website: markkatzman.net
- Book: M7 on Amazon
- Wikipedia: Mark Katzman
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/markkatzman
Wendy Shulgin (Synergetic/Transform Press) and Mark Katzman,
Psychedelic Science Conference, Denver, CO, June 20, 2025
