Contemporary Authors

• The Through - October 1, 2017 Jaded Ibis Press,

• author website - http://www.arafaeljohnson.com

  A. Rafael Johnson was born in 1970. As a child, he lived in and around Binghamton, Austin, and Rockland County, NY, where he attended Clarkstown High School North (Go Rams!) He spent most summers with his extended family in rural Arkansas. His cousins teased him about his middle name, similar to a red-headed comic relief character on a popular sitcom. He played tuba. He hated writing.
  A. Rafael Johnson earned a BA in Drama from The University of Texas, where he studied under performance artist Linda Montano and co-founded the performance art group softmen with Fausto Fernos and Chris Rincòn. He directed and acted in Austin, mainly at the Vortex Theatre. He also worked as a stage manager at the University of Texas Performing Arts Center (now Texas Performing Arts) and other venues, working with Maya Angelou, Merce Cunningham, The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Danny Glover, Willie Nelson, Cesaria Evora, McCoy Tyner, Tori Amos, Charlie Haden, Herbie Hancock, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, and other stars. He even met the actor who played the namesake red-headed comic relief character his cousins used to tease him about. He quit playing tuba. He still hated writing.
  Sometime in the early 2000’s, A. Rafael Johnson (as ulitave) began Absinthe Party in the Fly Honey Warehouse, a blog chronicling his life as an African-American single parent. By now, he liked writing. A bit.
  Sekou Sundiata workshopped his final piece, 51st (Dream) State with Johnson and other local writers. After a long talk with Sundiata, Johnson took his writing seriously.
  A. Rafael Johnson went on to publish a few short stories, and wrote Whorizontal, a monthly column about sex in Central Texas for Whoopsy! Magazine.
  A. Rafael Johnson entered The University of Alabama MFA Creative Writing program in 2008. He edited for Black Warrior Review and Fairy Tale Review. He interrupted his studies to teach in post-conflict Liberia as part of USAID-funded reconstruction efforts. Among other things, Johnson taught composition and literature at Cuttington University and was the national distribution manager for Books for Africa. After returning, Johnson completed his MFA and remained on campus, lecturing in composition, literature, hip hop, spoken word, and creative writing.
  In 2014, A. Rafael Johnson was named a Kimbilio Fellow in African American Fiction. His story, The Boy Who Climbed His Mother Into Heaven was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His essay Wince: George and Trayvon was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize. From 2014 – 2016, he ran the Pure Products Reading and Lecture Series in Tuscaloosa and Northport, AL. He also coached participants in Poetry Out Loud and Writers in the Schools.
  In 2015, A. Rafael Johnson began examining old notes from his life in Liberia and his return to the States. He started tinkering with the voices he found running through his notes, who eventually turned into Ben, Adrian, Free Cookie, and other characters in The Through (2017).
  A. Rafael Johnson co-owns TerraLuna Collaborative, a consulting firm based in Minneapolis. He has co-produced Writer’s Resist – Twin Cities and Banned Together. Johnson is currently finishing a collection of short stories called Okahika. He currently teaches Magical Realism at The Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He also writes UNOFFICIAL, which helps readers navigate and resist the Trump Administration.
  A. Rafael Johnson lives in Minneapolis, where he is often mistaken for Marlon James.

• TNB - http://thenervousbreakdown.com

  A. Rafael Johnson: The TNB Self-Interview
  By TNB Fiction
  November 28, 2017
  Fiction Self-Interviews
  What is your debut novel, The Through, about?

  The novel has two protagonists, Ben and Adrian. Adrian is a dual survivor of Hurricane Katrina and childhood sexual abuse. Her boyfriend Ben can’t make a decision about the future. So, one fears her past, the other fears his future. Then, a slave ship appears over their heads, and they have to figure out what to do. There’s a witch named Cut Mary, a doppelganger, ghosts, even a zombie. And a cat that has two origin stories. The Through also involves the town of Okahika, which I can best describe as a Southern ghost town. There’s one Okahika, but it exists simultaneously in every Southern state.

  To be a bit less concrete, The Through is about the dissonance between the observable universe around us and the magical universe inside us. Sometimes those two realities fit together, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the observable and magical switch places. So in the book, we see the observable place in Northport, AL, and the magical place in Okahika, a.k.a. The Through, and characters who navigate both spaces.

  What would you say was the chief inspiration behind the book? And how long has it been since the time you had the first kernel of an idea that eventually grew into this book?

  About four years ago, I was sitting in a neo-slavery fiction class taught by Trudier Harris. I can’t remember which book we were discussing, but I had a sudden image of a woman carrying something on her head, the way women in West Africa carry things. The thing was huge. I let my imagination zoom out and saw an entire slave ship atop her head. The Through began as an exploration of that image.

  Another way to answer that question is that I was an aid worker in Liberia, from 2009-2011. I saw things there that I can’t resolve without invoking some kind of magic or spirituality as an explanation. I’m not a religious person, so that inner conflict became something I needed to explore.

  Speaking of that, do you identify as black or African American?

  Where’s this going?

  What I’m asking, I suppose, is whether you feel like your writing fits into the Black literary canon or the African-American literary canon, or if there’s any useful distinction between the two. Am I making sense?

  Toni Morrison said, “In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” So Blackness was a way of setting us apart, right? We weren’t considered Americans, or at best we had a second-class status. But then we gained the right to vote, to assemble, to hold jobs, to receive an education, and there was some fleeting acknowledgement that a few centuries of systemic racism may have affected our wealth, our families, etc. Later, we started the idea of African-American, in the way some groups are Irish-American or Mexican-American. But I’m not sure the idea holds. Other hyphenated identities include some sort of immigrant journey going from one place to another place, but we’re not immigrants. We didn’t all start out in the same place. So to answer that question, I think the characters grapple with the intricacies of those identities as well. Does that make The Through fit into a particular canon? I don’t know.

  So, who are your main literary influences?

  When I was an undergrad (University of Texas at Austin), I signed up for the typical World Lit survey class. The instructor went over the syllabus during the first class meeting. The authors were all Europeans, plus an American and a Canadian. I raised my hand and said, “I’m sorry, but I think I’m in the wrong room. I signed up for World Literature, and these authors are mostly from Europe.”

  The instructor looked at me and said, “That’s the only world that matters.”

  What?!

  I know, right? I dropped that class and found an African Literature class. The professor turned out to be Bernth Lindfors, who was instrumental in bringing African literature to Western audiences. Through him, I discovered Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola, Mariama Ba, Wole Soyinka, and a whole “world” I never knew existed. They became my literary influences. Later, I added Morrison, Murukami, Marquez, Hurston, Calvino, Borges, Ducornet, Ellison, and Asturias.

  That being said, all my influences aren’t writers. Albert Ayler, this amazing experimental saxophonist, became a huge influence. I’m a fan of Dali, and I mention Willie Cole in the book.

  Can I ask two spoiler alert questions about The Through?

  Sure.

  Cut Mary gives Adrian a zombie, who turns out to be someone important. I find myself thinking a lot about the zombie. What was Cut Mary’s motivation? A test, something of her own?

  Cut Mary is a hard one to figure out. She appears in some of my other stories, but my sense is that she’s lived a long time and learned from her mistakes. Her “gift” might be an apology of sorts. Or an attempt at healing. That being said, I can’t pretend I know all there is to know about Cut Mary.

  Ben and Adrian both find a cat named Free Cookie. Their stories don’t match – in fact, they’re incompatible. Who’s right and who’s wrong?

  Maybe they’re both wrong. Maybe they’re both right. Or something else happened. That happens in relationships. You and your partner go to the same place, have the same conversation, and walk away thinking two completely different things occurred. But the point is they don’t communicate. The reader sees how distant Ben and Adrian are from each other, but neither of them face that very well, at least not at first.

  Last question. I’ve checked out your blog. You’re a fairly political person, but there’s no mention of current politics in The Through? Why is that?

  I wrestled with that while I finished the book. I felt like the world was falling in on us, and nothing I wrote addressed that very directly. Unofficial was part of my response, a space to write about politics. As for The Through, part of the task of the writer is to create and hold space for our collective imagination. We have to look ahead and envision possibilities. If we don’t, no one will.

  __________________________

  A. RAFAEL JOHNSON is the author of The Through and a fellow with Kimbilio Fiction. He grew up in New York and Texas, but now calls Minneapolis home. He holds a BA in Drama from The University of Texas, and an MFA in Fiction from The University of Alabama. His writing has previously appeared in Kweli, African American Review, Callaloo, and is forthcoming in Spaceship. Johnson co-owns TerraLuna Collaborative, a program evaluation consultancy firm. Johnson is currently working on his next book.

• TerraLuna Collaborative - https://www.developmentalevaluation.institute/meet-the-team/

  Andy Johnson, MFA
  Andy Johnson works in arts-based evaluation and applied neuroaesthetics, using his background in the arts to transform what we find valuable, beautiful, and memorable into data useful for decision making. Andy brings 30+ years of experience in creative work, administration, and activism to TerraLuna. Andy began his career as a musician, then as stage manager and director. He advised graduate students and faculty in the Department of Sociology for seven years. Later, Andy became an aid worker in postwar Liberia under a USAID contract. In Liberia, Andy served as the nationwide coordinator of a Books for Africa initiative that reduced the national student-to-textbook ratio from an average of 26:1 to 4:1, connected former child soldiers with literacy and job training programs, and created the First-Year Writing Program at Cuttington University.
  After completing a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction, Andy taught the first known #blacklivesmatter course in America, as well as spoken word, fiction writing, African American comedy, literature, and composition courses. Andy lends his skills to local creative and literacy-based projects, including Poetry Out Loud, Writers in the Schools, and Writers Resist. Andy’s fiction has been seen in Callaloo, African American Review, and other publications. His first novel The Through will be published in September of 2017.
  Over the course of his career, Andy has developed skills in observation, textual analysis, interviewing, recruiting, positive behavior supports, and arts-based interventions, as well as writing and editing. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Drama from The University of Texas, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from The University of Alabama.

Print Marked Items
Johnson, A. Rafael: THE THROUGH
Kirkus Reviews.
(Oct. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text: 
Johnson, A. Rafael THE THROUGH Jaded Ibis Press (Indie Fiction) $9.99 11, 1
A debut literary novel tells the story of a couple confronted by surreal elements from the South's troubled
past.
Adrian Dussett is a woman haunted by her past. Molested as a child by a friend of her mother's, she
developed a shell to protect her inner self from the world even though this casing has kept her from finding
happiness and love. After Katrina destroys her native New Orleans--her former abuser drowns and Adrian
herself only escapes the flood by sawing her way onto her mother's roof--she ends up in the quiet town of
Northport, Alabama. From the outside, her life appears normal. She operates a charitable investment firm
and lives with her supportive boyfriend, Ben Hughes. But Adrian begins to see things that she can't explain
to other people: a doppelganger of her dead mother; a ghost ship sailing through the clouds; a cicada
emerging fully formed from a cut in her palm. It might be madness or PTSD, but it might have something to
do with the mysterious black town of Okahika--which seems to exist simultaneously in different states
throughout the South--and the folklore associated with it. As Adrian and Ben suffer through intrusions into
the life they've tried to build, they are pulled back into the checkered history of the region and their people,
where the waters of African myth and American tragedy mingle in anticipation of the coming flood.
Johnson writes in a lyrical prose that blends the vernacular voice with crisp images and an ear for music:
"The area used to be a black neighborhood, but it's just a vacant lot now. There are no buildings left for a
haint to haunt, but if one popped out of the pokeweed berries and said how you be baby, I'd say awrite." The
narration jumps among Adrian, Ben, and the educational podcasts that he listens to--the influence of African
masks on Picasso, the sculptures of Willie Cole. This grounds the magical realist elements of the plot in
sensible (if not always reliable) narrators. The book is disjointed, fluid, and perhaps overstuffed with motifs,
but its unpredictable turns and metafictional flourishes should appeal to fans of challenging literary novels.
An intricate and often beautiful magical realist treatment of the South.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Johnson, A. Rafael: THE THROUGH." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A509243968/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5178554c.
Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A509243968