About Charles Shuttleworth
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Jack Kerouac is one of the most important writers of the past century, his work having a profound effect on both the direction of modern writing (freeing it stylistically and opening it to previously verboten subject matter), on art more broadly (On the Road in particular having influenced the work of countless later writers, artists and musicians) and on social change, the Beat movement having led to the 1960s counterculture, the effects of which – the striving for human freedoms and eco-consciousness – remain.
Charles Shuttleworth
Senior Editor, Sal Paradise Press
Writer,
Editor,
Teacher
I am currently the senior editor for Sal Paradise Press, the publishing arm of the Estate of Jack Kerouac, working closely with Jim Sampas, the estate’s Literary Executor. As such I’ve now edited three volumes of Kerouac’s previously unpublished archival writings: Desolation Peak, published in 2022, which consists of Kerouac’s writing during his two-month stint as a fire lookout for the US Forest Service in the North Cascades in 1956; Self-Portrait (co-edited with Paul Maher, Jr.), a blend of fiction and nonfiction spanning Kerouac’s entire adult life, from a journal written at age seventeen to autobiographical reflections a few years before his death, chosen for the consistent high quality of the writing as well as the personal revelations they contain; and most recently The Buddhist Years (2025), a collection reflecting the spiritual side of Kerouac’s nature focusing mainly on writings from 1953-’58, when Buddhism became central to his thinking and questioning. I’ve also written a book-length study of Kerouac’s The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, which was written during the apex of his involvement with Buddhism. My study details The Scripture’s meaning and evolution verse by verse – citing its sources, explaining its concepts, and discussing all that the original notebook version reveals about its composition. And I’m currently at work on a novel entitled Humanist Road: The Spiritual Journey of Philip Renfro, a pseudobiography about a fictitious Beat poet whom I’ve fit into the Beat-Hippie chronology.
I attended the Hotchkiss School (class of ’76) and then New York University, receiving a B.A. with a double major in English and Journalism in 1982 and an M.A. in English and American Literature in 1984. I have been teaching classes on Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation for the past 30 years, beginning at the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, NY (where Kerouac attended in 1939-’40 before entering Columbia University); later at the Dwight School in New York City; and currently at the Harker School in San Jose, CA.
Charles Shuttleworth: Kerouac’s Buddhist Years and Other Discoveries
Lowell Celebrates Kerouac 2024, Parker Lecture Series
From program:
Charles Shuttleworth is a teacher at the Harker School in San Jose, Calif. A noted Kerouac scholar, his presentation for this year’s Parker Lecture draws on the vast wealth of unpublished writings housed in the New York Public Library’s Kerouac archive, with a special focus on Kerouac’s Buddhist period, 1954-58.
Lowell National Historical Park Visitor
A number of speaking events are planned for the release of my new book. I’ll be delighted if you can join me.