Weekly Weird Monthly

Naked serial killers in Volkswagens
Naked serial killers in Volkswagens
McDaris, Catfish (Author)
Beauty pageant
Beauty pageant
Couture, Cheryl (Author)

Nothing sums up the work of horror/science fiction writer Andrew Hilbert better than an anecdote he shared with The Austin Chronicle in 2016. Hilbert’s writing talent comes honestly through his grandmother, respected poet Donna Hilbert. When he was a child, he asked his grandmother how to write poetry, and she told him to write what was inside of him. So what did Andrew do? He wrote “poems about bones, blood, and piss.”[1]

Hilbert’s macabre taste lies squarely outside of the mainstream, which has led him to pursue several independent publishing projects including the small press Weekly Weird Monthly. The press’s name reflects Hilbert’s sly, irreverent humor. The name intentionally invokes small presses’ tendency to claim that they publish in regular intervals by including “monthly” or “weekly” in their titles. Hilbert pointed out that many of these presses never live up to their names and publish irregularly, if at all, so he gave his press a confusing name with no promise of a publishing schedule.[2]

Despite this premise, Weekly Weird Monthly was remarkably productive, and Hilbert released a series of chapbooks in 2014-2016. This series is probably most known for Naked Serial Killers in Volkswagens by outsider artist and poet Catfish McDaris (who claims to have friended Charles Bukowski and Allen Ginsberg),[3] but it also features several local writers who share Hilbert’s bizarre oeuvre.

One such writer is Cheryl Couture, whose chapbook Beauty Pageant includes a handful of strange, feminist short stories alongside her illustrations and comics. Hilbert fulfilled the promise of his joke and no longer publishes under Weekly Weird Monthly. But he continues to be a prolific presence in Austin’s literary community with new ventures such as the journal Cockroach Conservatory.[4]

Notes

[1] Pointeau, François. “Gross In: Is Any Writer in Austin as Revolting and Entertaining as Andrew Hilbert?” The Austin Chronicle. April 22, 2016. https://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2016-04-22/gross-in/. Find it at the UT Libraries.

[2] Cota, Mitch William. Lone Star ImPRESSions: A History of Small Press in Texas. (Austin: University of Texas at Austin, 2017), 18. https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/63268.

[3] McDaris, Catfish. Naked Serial Killers in Volkswagens. Austin, TX: Week Weird Monthly, 2015, 50. Find it at the UT Libraries.

[4] “The Cockroach Conservatory: Buy Cockroach Conservatory, Vol. 2: The Glory of Man: The Rise and Fall of the Reality Soldier Now!” The Cockroach Conservatory, January 25, 2019. http://cockroachconservatory.blogspot.com/2019/01/buy-cockroach-conservatory-vol-2-glory.html.