Richard Brautigan (1935-1984) is an American writer. His easy-to-read yet idiosyncratic prose style is seen as the best characterisation of the cultural electricity prevalent in San Francisco during the last years of the Beat Generation and the emergence of the counterculture movement.

The Brautigan Book Club isn’t a normal book club. Instead it’s a creative society inspired by the American Beat writer and counterculture icon, Richard Brautigan.

Founded by theatre company saltpeter as part of its role as an artistic hub, The Brautigan Book Club will meet monthly throughout 2012 to explore Brautigan’s novels, building towards the International Unpublished Writers Day (Jan 30), a festival of creative expression inspired by Brautigan’s infamous library, and the UK premiere of Tonseisha – The Man Who Abandoned the World, an epic play with opera inspired by Brautigan. While we're based in London, fellow Brautiganites will be able to join us via our website, and are encouraged to launch their own satellite events.

The Club provides a warm, informal setting in which Brautigan is our starting point. Though each meeting features a guest speaker presenting a response to the book, we encourage everyone to share their responses, no matter how elliptical. Anything from re-enacting a moment from a book, baking a cake, writing a song, even planting a garden; all and everything is wanted. We will weave a selection into a handmade 'zine' at the end of the year – a Brautigan-inspired creative retrospective, if you will, and nod towards self-publishing.

The particular beauty of The Brautigan Book Club is that it encourages total freedom of expression. It nurtures creative friendships and critical dialogue, both online and through live events, across the globe.

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Read "Why I Started The Brautigan Book Club" here.

The BBC is produced by saltpeter and run by a team of volunteers. If you're able to pitch in, please get in touch.

• Michael Caines is an assistant editor at the Times Literary Supplement and plays guitar in a band called Spirit of Play.
• Vera Chok is the artistic director of saltpeter and producer of the BBC.
• Matt Hope. Largely defying what people tell him about music, Matt aka AlienDeathSpike has, in recent years, conformed to anti-movements and abashed the mainstream with shame.
• Polly Frame actor and associate artist for the live art performance group, bodies in flight
• Peter Law Games, digithings, books.
• Fuchsia Voremberg is an American Literature graduate, writer, illustrator and zine-maker.
  

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 Thank you to

• John Barber, who runs brautigan.net, a key online resource
• The Brautigan Library
• Nemonie Craven, literary agent and founder (with Shahidha Bari) of How to Live. Nemonie also runs with The Militia Canteen
• Warren Dent, BGWMC
• David Duchin, People Show
• Katherine Godfrey