"Io Anthology"celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of this formative journal and commemorates its role in clearing a path for decades of innovative publishing. Bringing together in one volume the quirky blend of artistic and scholarly writing that pushed the boundaries of what the "literary mag" encompassed, this book is a greatest hits collection of the major pieces published from 1965 to 1978. It features very early work from Stephen King, Allen Ginsberg, Michel Foucault, and many others, with forewords by writer and filmmaker Miranda July and scientist Robin Grossinger. In its twelve years of publishing, "Io"forged an inclusive path through the tsunami of the 1960s rebellion in art, literature, and the life of the spirit with writing that embraced science and science fiction, parapsychology, poetry from Pound to Charles Olson to the New American Poets, homeopathy, hermetics, alchemy and the occult, astrology, Tibetan Buddhism, and Sufism. Founded by Lindy Hough at Smith, Richard Grossinger at Amherst, a painter at Mt. Holyoke, and a faculty member at UMass, "Io"was nurtured beyond college by Hough and Grossinger, who published their contemporaries and mentors, including friends Charles Stein, Harvey Bialy, and Nelson Richardson and teachers Robert Kelly, Robert Duncan, and Robert Creeley. North Atlantic Books, the publishing company, evolved naturally from"Io, "the literary journal, and Hough and Grossinger welcomed authors who explored the cornucopia of new knowledge about how to grow and eat food (permaculture, organic gardening, diet and nutrition); how to find health through new paradigms of healing (Jungian psychology, homeopathy, somatic psychology, Reiki and energy work, bioenergetics, Lomi work); and how to work with demons and grow strong (martial arts). Writers hungry to spread their work of the spirit published books about shamanism, Buddhism, Judaism, and mythology.

This wide-ranging anthology tracks the heady trajectory of more than three and a half decades of vanguard writing and publishing. Spotlighting the continuity of purpose and content between North Atlantic Books, which grew out of the magazine, this volume chronicles the voices and spirit that continue to enliven the publishing vision that persists to this day.".