Alex Wermer-Colan

After extensive archival research, in 2015 Alex edited a collection of unpublished archival materials involving Burroughs experimenting by cutting up texts by other writers, from Arthur Rimbaud to Anthony Burgess, entitled The Travel Agency is on Fire, published by Lost & Found. These texts were later set to music and performed in NYC at The Stone. Alex’s dramaturgical work has led to his work on Decoder, a multimedia adaptation of Burroughs’ cut-up novels to the stage, with performances at Mabou Mines, Mt. Tremper Arts, and the Chocolate Factory. Wermer-Colan also co-edited Cutting Up the Century (2019), a major collection of essays and archival materials published by Indiana University Press covering the range of approaches central to Burroughs’ cut-up method. Alex is currently working on a variety of Burroughs projects, including remediating underexplored elements of Burroughs’ archive, and adapting additional texts for musical and theatrical performance. He is also co-editing with Oliver Harris and Davis Schneiderman a new collection of essays, William S. Burroughs in Context, to be published by Cambridge University Press.