Adam Parfrey founded Feral House in 1989.  We have published hundreds of innovative, unexpected, and thought-provoking nonfiction books. We’ve inspired films and cultural trends. We’ve exposed crime, malfeasance, and stupidity. And we bring new attention to artists and thinkers overlooked by popular media. 

Feral House (and its imprint Process Media) is a formidable force in independent publishing and often the first and definitive source for documenting cultural movements.

Our publishing topics

• Biography – Cultural and historical figures, unique characters, forgotten contributors to social and artistic movements, and eccentric creators and artists.

• Music – Influential yet underground genres and movements and important and overlooked creators.

• History – People and events outside the “textbook” of American history.

• Self-Reliance – Skills and practical how-to advice on living in the modern world (or living in the post-apocalyptic world).

• Realpolitik – Underground movements, philosophies, events, and people affecting and influencing government.

• Criminal Justice – Experiences and narratives about crime and the criminal justice system.

• Mysticism & Occult – Stories about people, groups, and ideas that dwell in the outer realms of belief.

• Food – Cookbooks and culinary histories by cultural outlaws.

We have specific interest in:

• Stories about the foremothers of rock-n-roll.

• Black, Asian, and Indigenous experiences in post-Civil War U.S.

• Historic contributors to American social movements, film, and music.

• Trailblazers of science, politics, culture, and the arts.

• Histories and biographies of intellectuals, scientists, and artists throughout the world long ignored by traditional American textbooks.

Noted for his foresight as both a writer and publisher, Adam Parfrey’s Apocalypse Culture (1987) was hailed by J.G. Ballard as “the terminal documents of the Twentieth Century.” Cult Rapture (1995), subject of a notorious art exhibition at Seattle’s Center on Contemporary Art, included among its dozen pop culture investigations, Parfrey’s Village Voice cover story, the first published article on militias and domestic terrorism.

Apocalypse Culture II (2000), Parfrey’s lauded sequel, anticipated anthrax terror with a disturbing article on Biological Warfare. Extreme Islam: Anti-American Propaganda of Muslim Fundamentalism (2001), “a frightening primer on radical Muslim thought” (New York Press), reveals the ways in which East Jerusalem has become Ground Zero for a coming World War.

In 2012, with co-author Craig Heimbichner, Adam wrote the seminal book on American secret societies, Ritual America:  Secret Brotherhoods and Their Influence on American Society. 

But writing is not Parfrey’s sole forte. According to the Disinfo.com website, “Adam Parfrey is probably the most influential ‘underground’ publisher in post-millennial America.” In an L.A. Weekly feature, writer Doug Harvey celebrated “Adam Parfrey’s notorious, perpetually ahead-of-the-curve company, Feral House, whose encyclopedic interest in taboo (and conveniently forgotten) cultural phenomena helped define independent media through the ’90s.”

Tim Burton’s biopic on the B-movie director Ed Wood was based upon the Feral House book, Nightmare of Ecstasy.  The 2018 Jonas Akerlund film Lords of Chaos was based on the Feral House title of the same name. Feral House’s collections of bizarre conspiracy theories, such as Secret and Suppressed: Banned Ideas and Hidden History, were noted influences on Chris Carter’s X-Files. Parfrey himself appeared in and co-wrote Crispin Glover’s controversial “What Is It?” ? a 2005 Sundance Film Festival selection.

Parfrey’s second publishing imprint, Process Media, a collaboration with Jodi Wille, debuted in 2005 with publications by authors Jerry Stahl (Permanent Midnight), Timothy Archibald (Sex Machines), and Jolene Siana (Go Ask Ogre), and the popular Self-Reliance Series.

Feral House today embraces Adam’s fearless stance on the First Amendment and will continue to challenge, inform, and entertain readers with books from the margins of mainstream culture. As Adam said, “Feral House publishes dangerous books not because we agree with the ideas, but as evidence that these ideas exist and demand reckoning.”