Hello, I’m LuLu
I write novels about art and travel and myth. My heroines tend to hail from the South, like me, where they explore the art world while giving an ancient myth a modern twist. I also write poems about Picasso and models and the area where I live, and essays about everything else.
Museums are my passion. I’ve volunteered in several, from registrar to installations. Being behind the scenes is great, but standing in front of art is even better. My love of art history, galleries, and modeling drives me to write about the art world.
My Writing Journey
I earned a degree in Art History from Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, Texas. At SMU, Dr. Alessandra Comini changed how I saw art, and how I lived my life.
Dr. Comini brought art and artists to life. She danced on stage to wake us up, and to tie art to the vibrant times in which it was made. Because of Dr. Comini, I left college enthralled by artists and determined to build a career in the art world. But it wasn’t a straight line.
I did work as Registrar at Connell/Great American Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia. After that short stint, I earned a second BA, and an MFA in English/Creative Writing with a Poetry concentration. My interests aligned in grad school when I began to model in art studios.
Modeling for artists shifted my experience from admirer to co-worker, from fan to inspiration. I became friends with talented and generous artists who often gifted me their work. The joke around our house is that any painting of an animal belongs to my husband, while any portrait of a woman is probably me, and probably mine.
After earning my MFA, I taught English at the university level for three years before moving to Germany as an exchange student. Along with PhD coursework, I traveled, mostly alone, to museums from Copenhagen to Paris, Florence to Prague.
Two years later, I returned to the States fluent in German, spoiled by Europe’s museums, and driven to share those experiences through words. And that’s one dream that has worked.
MY FORMAL BIO - if you need it!
LuLu Johnson turned to Art History the day a live rat was dissected in her pre-med biology class. Ditching the pre-med path, she switched gears and went on to earn an MFA in Poetry. She silently stores half a PhD in her back pocket. Born in Valdosta, Georgia, LuLu has never lived north of the Mason-Dixon Line, except for two years in Germany as an exchange student.
Armed with her Art History degree, LuLu worked in various museums and galleries. She began modeling for artists in graduate school and has never quit. Her studio walls are lined with portraits of her painted by artist friends. Surrounded by versions of herself, LuLu writes novels about art and myth, poems about modeling and life in the South, and essays about everything else. She hikes and whitewater kayaks in Appalachia where she lives.
My Writing Life
The Gods on Earth Series
My novels focus on my interests—art and myth. In my fiction, contemporary characters explore the art world while giving an ancient myth a modern twist.
Art, art historians, artists, and art thieves all play roles in my Gods on Earth series. The series brings Greek gods to life in modern times to work out their ancient karma.
In Eros on Earth, the God of Love arrives in Asheville, North Carolina. He’s been sent by his mother, Aphrodite, to wreck havoc on the latest Psyche, Pep Meyer. In keeping with the myth, Eros shoots himself with his newfangled love laser and falls in love with Pep. In this sweet workplace romance, immersive exhibits, erotic paintings, and jealous Gods work against Pep as she learns to navigate the high-stakes worlds of art and love.
Apollo in Love tells the story of the Sun God arriving in Key West, Florida. Apollo wants revenge on Eros for sticking him in a loveless relationship with Daphne for centuries. He doesn’t find Eros, but Apollo meets Piers Anders, the owner of the island’s finest boutique motel. In exchange for rent, Apollo models for Piers in a series of paintings that makes them both famous as they fall in love. Summoned to Asheville for a solo show, Piers learns Apollo’s mythic truth while the Sun God must forgive his mortal enemy.
Diana on the Hunt follows the Goddess of the Hunt to Amsterdam as she tracks down a painting stolen from Eros’s Asheville museum. The thief turns out to be her ex-boyfriend, who betrayed Diana in the Acadian Forest and now goes by the name Joe Echo. The painting’s stolen from them, so Diana and Joe must work together to catch the real thief. Neither is prepared to fall in back in love, or to discover who was behind the plot all along.
The Gods on Earth series is forthcoming from All Points South Press. Sign up below for my newsletter to follow my journey as these books make their way into print.
Pandora’s Gift and other art novels
My dear friend, Roger Dorset, was the inspiration for Pandora’s Gift in which a young art historian befriends a genius driven by demons but bound for stardom.
I met Roger Dorset during my brief stint at Connell Gallery in Atlanta. One lucky day, Roger drove his station wagon over from Rome, Georgia, to deliver work for his show. Roger invited my dear friend Rebecca and me to visit his home, and we gladly went. That was the start of a beautiful friendship that lasted for decades until we lost Roger in 2019.
While Roger was alive, I wished I could clone myself so I could live my own life while also managing his art career. One day, I admitted this dream to Rebecca, and I ended the conversation saying, “I should write about that.”
The words were no sooner out of my mouth than the idea was in my head. I immediately outlined a novel based on the Pandora myth featuring a Roger-like artist and a young art historian like me.
In Pandora’s Gift, Cary Taylor isn’t Roger Dorset, and Paisley Locke isn’t me—but it was a pleasure to create characters that built on Roger’s old-school southern charm, his drive to create and the demons that haunted him, and my own youthful innocence.
This novel’s currently on the backburner, but I’d love to fine-tune its minor issues, and bring it out so that readers can learn about an artist and his friend who became his muse.
Other art novels I’ve drafted include Persophone’s Return and Samson’s Sword.
My Poems
I earned my MFA in Poetry at Georgia State University in Atlanta. I studied with David Bottoms and fell in love with the way he used verbs. Leon Stokesbury taught me the form and theory of poetry. My work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Flyway, Atlanta Review, The Distillery, Sheila-Na-Gig, Honeyguide, and others.
My chapbook, “The Higher Call” focuses on Pablo Picasso and his models. These poems draw on my knowledge of art history and my experience as artist model. My book-length collection, “The Dark Start of Things” focuses on the flora and fauna in Appalachia where I live, on my personally mythology, and on mortality.
My Essays
I didn’t even know I wrote essays until David Sheilds told me at Bread Loaf that my longer pieces were personal lyrical essays. He opened that door to me, and I gladly waltzed right through.
My first essays focused on my two years in Germany as exchange student. This collection, Travel Through a World of Men, follows the structure of the Odyssey in which I act as my own Homer to chart the course of my heart as it roved across Europe—from Berlin to Denmark, Paris to Florence, Venice to Prague, Amsterdam to Croatia, and home.
Steven Church selected the essay “In My Other Life” as winner of the University of New Orleans Study Abroad Contest. The fabulous prize allowed me to study with Steven for a month in Madrid. The essay went on to be published in The Pinch.
I’m also working on a collection called Horses I Have Known. These flash-nonfiction pieces tie my love life to my riding life. The title pretty much says it all. Essays from this collection have appeared in Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and Hobart.
Write Here! Podcast
When not working at my desk, I attend writing workshops, conferences, and residences to a nearly ridiculous degree.
I’ve had the good fortune to study fiction with Elizabeth George, Marita Golden, and Lori Roy.
I’ve worked on nonfiction as a resident at the Hambidge and Weymouth Centers, with David Shields at Bread Loaf Writers Conference, with Janisse Ray at Looking Glass Rock, and with Jim McKean at Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop.
I’ve studied poetry with Philip Shabazz at Table Rock Writers Conference, and I recently completed Middle Tennessee University’s Write program, mentored by Andrea Jurjević.
Everything I’ve learned about conferences, residencies, and workshops—the tips and tricks, the similarities and differences, the highs and lows—wants to be shared. I just haven’t chosen a format. Some days I want to publish a guidebook called Write Here! Some days I think it should be a podcast. Other days I put it on my Substack.
Nothing’s sure yet. But if you sign up for my newsletter, you’ll be the first to hear.
Contact
Sign up for “All Points South,” my free newsletter that will keep you informed about my writing life. You can also follow me on Instagram @lu2johnson.
Portraits of LuLu and artwork by Roger Dorset, Diane Fenjack, Charles Reid, Peter McIntosh, and Marc Chatov
