Lee Clay Johnson, who leads the Brooklyn Writers Foundry Low-Residency MFA program at St. Joseph’s University, New York (SJNY), was the latest author to be featured in Brooklyn Voices, the long-running literary series that is a collaboration between SJNY and Greenlight Bookstore.
Johnson took to the stage inside Tuohy Hall on SJNY’s Brooklyn Campus on Sept. 24 to read from and discuss his new novel, “Bloodline.” Described as mesmerizing and darkly comic, it explores the concepts of masculinity run amuck, femininity’s strength and resolve, and the burdens of heritage and history.
This new novel, Johnson’s second, has the distinction of being the first fiction title from Panamerica, which released the work in early July.
Bloodline is a new novel by SJNY’s Lee Clay Johnson.
The book tour for “Bloodline” took Johnson across the U.S. this summer. Stops were made at indie book stores in Boston, Philadelphia, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle and Portland, to name just a handful of cities where Johnson traveled during the months of July and August.
“Brooklyn Voices is one of the most exciting reading series in New York City, and it was an honor to be included among its esteemed lineup. After a summer of touring around the country — twenty stops in all — to promote my new novel at all sorts of indie bookstores, coming back home to Clinton Hill with the support of Greenlight and St. Joseph’s was an extra special finale to the long trip,” said Johnson. “Faculty, friends, members of the community, current MFA students and alumni all showed up, and it just felt like one big family reunion. What a celebration!”
Joining Johnson on stage to lead the discussion was author Andrew Martin, who is part of the creative writing faculty at the Brooklyn Writers Foundry Low-Residency MFA.
Johnson noted that with Martin’s third book of fiction, “Down Time,” due out later this year, “it was fun to talk with him about the process of writing and editing, and the current state of publishing. The literary arts felt very much alive.”
The Brooklyn Writers Foundry Low-Residency MFA is an intimate program with a pair of one-week residency periods at the Brooklyn Campus (January and June) during which students participate in classes, readings and lectures with an exceptional roster of core and guest faculty members. For the rest of the year, students receive individualized monthly feedback on their writing from their workshop instructors while participating in virtual discussion-based reading classes. The program is designed to be in completed in two years.
SJNY will host a virtual info session on the MFA program on Oct. 7 at 6 p.m (EST).
