Here are some of the most frequently asked questions we get about who we are and what we’re doing here:
What is Liberty Island?
Liberty Island Media Group is an independent publishing company first launched in 2013 which currently operates an online magazine and releases novels and nonfiction books. The company seeks to offer a home base and launching pad for this growing counterculture of authors and creatives whose politically incorrect views or edgy perspectives exclude them from mainstream publication.
Why the name “Liberty Island Media Group”?
Liberty Island Media Group was founded in New York City and is named after Liberty Island, the home of the Statue of Liberty, a cherished symbol of American freedom and a welcoming beacon to the rest of the world since 1886. For us, Liberty Island is more a state of mind than a physical place: a creative colony where kindred spirits can join and build a new community. An island of freedom in a sea of conformity. A place where the imagination can truly run free.
Do you only publish “conservative fiction”? What kinds of books will you consider?
Let’s be clear right off the bat: Liberty Island is not interested in publishing novels that are thinly-disguised right-wing (or any other ideology) propaganda. If a fictional author’s ideological ideas are too obvious and overt then the book will almost never work and we are not interested in it.
What does interest us are books in a variety of genres which work first and foremost as engaging stories with memorable characters, creative prose, and a distinct authorial voice. Ideological, cultural, and religious points are best left as subtext. If you’re wanting to make them overt then you might as well just write a nonfiction book instead and make your arguments explicitly – and we will consider those as well.
Visit our submissions guidelines page to read about the various types of books we are looking for right now.
Is Liberty Island political?
Liberty Island is non-partisan and does not support particular legislation or politicians. However, Liberty Island is ideological.
Liberty Island’s new president David M. Swindle proudly identifies as a libertarian-conservative anti-communist defense hawk in the fusionist Frank S. Meyer, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Ronald Reagan tradition. Since 2009 he has participated in various capacities in the Zionist and counter-Islamist movements, causes which will receive support at Liberty Island.
Liberty Island welcomes a broad range of ideological perspectives from those in the disaffected center to the activist right, from devout religious conservatives to secular libertarians. And if you’re not part of any tribe and just want to think for yourself – you’re welcome to reach out too.
Liberty Island especially seeks books and authors which can transcend and heal ideological divides, whether it be books which can get liberals and conservatives seeing each other as humans again, or the NeverTrump and Pro-Trump sides of the Right finding a way to make peace after so many years of bitter fighting. Liberty Island operates in Andrew Breitbart’s “politics is downstream from culture” tradition and recognizes the unique potential of books and creative work to bridge ideological disagreements.
Why should writers publish their books through Liberty Island?
Liberty Island is a small, independent press and there is really only one reason why an author should choose to publish with us: because you agree with our mission, regard yourself as some variety of “counterculture conservative,” and want to join our group of writers, editors, activists, troublemakers, and creatives.
If you are looking for a larger, traditional, more established publisher, then it is best to exhaust those options before coming to us. We are a publisher for authors and books too bold and on the edge for the mainstream. We also welcome first-time authors looking for a place to launch their new writing careers.
How do writers publish content at the Liberty Island website?
Aspiring writers may contact us here to submit their stories, poems, essays, blog posts, artwork, and videos. Also submit queries for novels there after reading the submission guidelines here.
What is “counterculture conservatism”?
Liberty Island founder Adam Bellow wrote in a cover story for the July 7, 2014 issue of National Review announcing Liberty Island and explaining its ethos:
How do we fight back against this liberal establishment with its politically correct regime of thought control? There is only one way that I know of and that is by turning their weapons against them and channeling the spirit of the Sixties counterculture.
It is the longstanding belief of Liberty Island that “counterculture” concepts, lifestyles, religions, and traditions can be embraced alongside “conservative” political principles of Constitutionalism, limited government, muscular foreign policy, liberty, and even Bible-based morality. How?
In October 2012, Liberty Island’s publisher and editor-in-chief David M. Swindle, then associate editor at PJ Media, wrote an extended article titled “23 Books for Counterculture Conservatives, Tea Party Occultists, and Capitalist Wizards” which sought to identify key authors and ideas who could form an intellectual basis for this new movement. Here are some excerpts and comments about four books from it to begin the discussion:
Who is a Counterculture Conservative?
Someone with classical liberal politics and outside-the-mainstream art tastes, lifestyle choices, diet, fashion sensibilities, sexual preferences, or religious beliefs. Often times this mindset comes as a result of a political shift to the Right later in life.
Archetypal example: New Media troublemaker and publisher, the late Andrew Breitbart (whose memoir appears second on the list.)
1. Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House by Ken Goffman and Dan Joy
Official Description:
“As long as there has been culture, there has been counterculture. At times it moves deep below the surface of things, a stealth mode of being all but invisible to the dominant paradigm; at other times it’s in plain sight, challenging the status quo; and at still other times it erupts in a fiery burst of creative–or destructive–energy to change the world forever. But until now the countercultural phenomenon has been one of history’s great blind spots. Individual countercultures have been explored, but never before has a book set out to demonstrate the recurring nature of counterculturalism across all times and societies, and to illustrate its dynamic role in the continuous evolution of human values and cultures… countercultures share important underlying principles: individualism, anti-authoritarianism, and a belief in the possibility of personal and social transformation.
Ranging from the Socratic counterculture of ancient Athens and the outsider movements of Judaism, which left indelible marks on Western culture, to the Taoist, Sufi, and Zen Buddhist countercultures, which were equally influential in the East, to the famous countercultural moments of the last century–Paris in the twenties, Haight-Ashbury in the sixties, Tropicalismo, women’s liberation, punk rock–to the cutting-edge countercultures of the twenty-first century, which combine science, art, music, technology, politics, and religion in astonishing (and sometimes disturbing) new ways, Counterculture Through the Ages is an indispensable guidebook to where we’ve been . . . and where we’re going.”
Why Counterculture Conservatives Should Read It:
The key insight in reconciling counterculture and conservatism comes when we define the term historically, beyond just the caricature of the 60s hippie counterculture.
A counterculture is just any group of people who choose to reject some aspect of a dominant culture and then live peacefully in opposition to it. The Jews were a counterculture. So were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. So were the Christians in ancient Rome. So were the Pilgrims. And the Transcendentalists. And the Mormons.
Counterculture Through the Ages presents an alternative way of understanding the West: what if “Western Civilization” was actually just the compilation of all the best countercultural ideas that worked? What if Western Civilization wasn’t really about places or people or things but about a process to understand ourselves, one another, and our purpose in the world? And how do we figure out what that purpose is?
2. The Temple of Solomon: From Ancient Israel to Secret Societies by James Wasserman
Why Counterculture Conservatives Should Read It:
We need a place to go to be with God. We need to designate time and a place where we take a break from just trying to survive and instead work to transform ourselves into better, happier, strong, holier, more Godly people. That’s why we all — whether Jewish, Christian, secular, or mystic — need a Temple. Yes, a physical place to separate ourselves so we as individuals can take time to acknowledge, confront, and repair our own brokenness. That’s the essence of counterculture — recognizing the spiritual emptiness of a more dominant culture and then rejecting it to retreat to holiness.
3. Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword by John Whiteside Parsons
Why Counterculture Conservatives Should Read It:
Jack Parsons was one of Aleister Crowley’s most devoted practitioners of his magical system. He too embraced Crowley’s radical individualism and understood the connections to political liberty. His essay Freedom is a Two-Edged sword sets the standard for the pro-American, anti-Marxist, anti-Fascist, classical liberal, counterculture polemic. It reverberates with Parson’s distinct prose. Here’s an excerpt from a passage some might find still relevant more than 60 years later:
Freedom is a two-edged sword. He who believes that the absolute rightness of his belief is an authority to suppress the rights and opinions of his fellows cannot be a liberal. Liberalism cannot exist where it violates its own principles. It cannot exist where the emergency monger or the utopia salesman can obtain a suspension of rights, whether temporary or permanent. Liberty cannot be suppressed in order to defend liberalism.
If we are to achieve a democracy, the rights of individuals and the responsibilities of states must be openly defined and ardently defended. It is inconceivable that men who fought and died in a war against totalitarianism did not know what they fought for. It seems a fantastic joke that the institutions they believed in and defended have turned, like a nightmare, into home-grown tyrannies. A generation went down in blood and agony to make the world “safe” but the evil that makes the world “unsafe” still goes undefeated, plotting new sacrifices of misery and blood. The guilt lies not entirely with the warmongers, plutocrats and demagogues. If a people permit exploitation and regimentation in any name, they deserve their slavery. A tyrant does not make his tyranny. It is made possible by his people and not otherwise.
4. Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religionby David Gelernter
Official Description:
“What does it mean to ‘believe’ in America? Why do we always speak of our country as having a mission or purpose that is higher than other nations?
Modern liberals have invested a great deal in the notion that America was founded as a secular state, with religion relegated to the private sphere. David Gelernter argues that America is not secular at all, but a powerful religious idea—indeed, a religion in its own right.
Gelernter argues that what we have come to call ‘Americanism’ is in fact a secular version of Zionism. Not the Zionism of the ancient Hebrews, but that of the Puritan founders who saw themselves as the new children of Israel, creating a new Jerusalem in a new world. Their faith-based ideals of liberty, equality, and democratic governance had a greater influence on the nation’s founders than the Enlightenment.”
Why Counterculture Conservatives Should Read It:
The people who first came to the American continent from Europe were Christian radicals escaping persecution, wanting to live in a land where they could worship God as they saw fit in their own temples. They were just imitating the words written in their Bibles, the stories of ancient Hebrews fleeing Pharaoh in Exodus. We are a nation of dozens of countercultures all stitched together on this basic premise of freedom from tyranny. In this vigorous, engaging collection of historical, polemical essays Gelertner shows how successive generations of American presidents performed a magickal act: they secularized Zionism to create Americanism.
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Articles and books in the future will explain this concept in greater depth, including naming more key counterculture and conservative figures whose ideas can be utilized together.
