Bret Anthony Johnston makes his home in Boston these days, but his artistic feet are firmly planted in his real home town of Corpus Christi, Texas; the setting of his best-selling novel, Remember Me Like This.
Johnston has won numerous awards for his short fiction – including the Pushcart Prize, a fellowship from the NEA, and a 5 under 35 honor from The National Book Foundation. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. But Remember Me Like This is his first novel.
Johnston was in Milwaukee last month to speak at Mount Mary University on a book and lecture tour, and he joined Lake Effect's Bonnie North in the studio then to discuss his new book and the territories it examines.
"As a writer I am interested in aftermath...I was interested in that duality in these character's lives of what would it be like to have the thing that you've dreamed of for four years, all those answered prayers to be made manifest, and is it always going to be the blessing that you thought," says Johnston. "I was interested in finding out what I couldn't find out without writing the book."
Bret Anthony Johnston is the author of the short fiction collection Corpus Christi: Stories, which was named a best book of the year by The Independent in London. He is the Director of Creative Writing at Harvard University in Boston.
Listen to Johnston read the opening chapter of Remember Me Like This for Lake Effect below:
