Introduction to Joel Johnson. 2:56 min. Interview: Raymond Elman. Post-Production: Lee Skye. Music: Billy Torello. Recorded via Zoom: 5/9/2024.
JOEL F. JOHNSON is a business appraiser, a poet and novelist, and the survivor of a rattlesnake bite.
Johnson’s debut novel, “Never” (Arbitrary Press, 2023), is a coming-of-age story in the segregated South. Though a work of fiction, the novel brims with realistic detail of life on the white side of the Jim Crow South. The novel won an Independent Press Award and was a finalist for an Indie Book Award.
In 2013, Antrim House published Johnson’s book of poetry, “Where Inches Seem Miles.” In its review, Kirkus found parallels between Johnson’s debut and the work of James Dickey. The reviewer described Johnson’s writing as “rich, compelling lyric poetry that bores beneath the decorum of civilization, revealing the elementally human beneath.”
Johnson graduated from Harvard College in 1976 with a BA in English & American Literature. He has an MBA in corporate finance and has been self-employed for twenty-five years. The father of three, Johnson and his wife live in Concord, MA. In 2022, a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon was cut short when a pink rattler bit Johnson’s leg but injected no venom. Neither Johnson nor the snake suffered permanent harm.
The videos below were recorded via Zoom, are organized by Success Factor, and run between 30 seconds and 4 minutes. Click on any video. You must be connected to the Internet to view the videos.
CRITICAL THINKING: 1:08 min.
I lived primarily in Massachusetts for 42 years and had very little social interaction with people of color. When I moved year-round to Miami in 2012, I was surprised by how welcome I was in the Black communities.
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 0:27 sec.
There are many examples of people in the arts who also had careers in business. Did you consider “giving up your day job”?
DEVELOP A VOICE: 1:44 min.
What was your first awareness of art of any discipline?
VALUES FIRST-RATE EDUCATION: 2:23 min.
Where did you go to school, and what did you learn that still informs you today?
OPEN TO CHANGE, FLEXIBILITY: 0:57 sec.
Did you have a pronounced Southern accent when you grew up, and did you consciously suppress it when you attended Harvard?
CRITICAL THINKING: 1:40 min.
In his film “The Last White Knight,” Paul Saltzman interviewed Delay de la Beckwith, whose father shot Medgar Evans in the back, searching for some common humanity. But all he could find was pure evil in the Klansman.
CRITICAL THINKING: 0:47 sec.
How do you apply Hannah Arendt’s phrase, “the banality of evil,” to the segregated society of your youth?
DEVELOP A VOICE: 2:06 min.
When did you start writing poetry?
INSIGHT & INSPIRATION: 3:06 min.
Have your friends and relatives from Columbus, Georgia, who grew up in the Jim Crow era, read your novel, “Never”?
CRITICAL THINKING: 2:21 min.
I think it was a very smart idea to have sensitivity readers for your novel.
UNDERSTANDS THE BUSINESS OF ART: 0:53 sec.
Did you already know the sensitivity readers you hired and knew you could trust their judgement, or did you find professionals in the Yellow Pages?
PERSEVERANCE FURTHERS: 1:48 min.
“Never” is your first novel. What was your process for getting it published?
CRITICAL THINKING: 2:02 min.
You’ve written one novel and one book of poems. What are you focused on now?
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 1:36 min.
There is an old expression, “When bankers get together they talk about art, and when artists get together they talk about money.” How does that resonate with you?
INSIGHT & INSPIRATION: 1:42 min.
Who are some of your role models?
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 1:38 min.
Why did you title your new novel “Never”?
SERENDIPITY: 0:48 sec.
Once you moved up North to attend Harvard, did you ever live in the South again?
