Mat Johnson is was born, August 19th 1970, to an Irish American man and an African American woman. Five years after his parents’ divorce, Mat was living with his social-worker mother in the predominantly black, working class Philly neighborhood of Germantown.

A consistently poor student, Mat easily maintained a D average by spending class time reading novels in his lap, pretending to be asleep. After barely getting in to a local state college, Mat finally applied himself, resulting in acceptance to a year-long foreign exchange program as a sophomore to the University of Wales at Swansea, his first time away from Philly, and an experience that would change his life. Transferring his junior year to the Quaker Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, Mat’s work as the black student union president won him the prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for future leaders. For his fellowship topic Mat researched the effects of international experiences on African Americans. Using London as his base, Mat traveled through Europe and West Africa interviewing black expatriates.

Unfortunately when the year was over Mat was forced to leave his London home and come back to Philly, eking out a living at a series of minimum-wage jobs (including working for the electric company). Back in poverty, obsessed with London to the point that he dreamed himself there nightly, Mat desperately tried to write a commercially-driven novel in the hopes of selling it and returning, often writing at the job while his coworkers covered the phone. By the end of this time, Mat had learned two things: 1. He loved writing far too much to put out another piece of junk into the world, and 2. He wasn’t good enough to do anything but write junk.

Mat spent the next year immersed in raising the level of his prose and storytelling, sleeping on his mother’s couch (at that time in Anchorage, Alaska). Eventually he was accepted to Columbia University’s Graduate Writing Program. It was in graduate school that Mat found a writing partner in fellow student Victor D. LaValle, whom he met in a workshop led by Michael Cunningham. The two eventually found an apartment together in nearby Harlem, thereby forming a friendship that would influence both of their writing. LaValle's, Slapboxing With Jesus and Mat’s DROP were written at the same time, at opposite ends of the apartment.
 

Read the Transcript of On-line Chat Featuring author Mat Johnson

Incognegro
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art by Warren Pleece

Hardcover: 136 pages
Publisher: Vertigo (February 6, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 140121097X
ISBN-13: 978-1401210977

Writer Mat Johnson, winner of the prestigious Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction, constructs a fearless graphic novel that is both a page-turning mystery and a disturbing exploration of race and self-image in America, masterfully illustrated with rich period detail by Wareen Pleece.

In the early 20th Century, when lynchings were commonplace throughout the American South, a few courageous reporters from the North risked their lives to expose these atrocities. They were African-American men who, due to their light skin color, could "pass" among the white folks. They called this dangerous assignment going "incognegro."

Zane Pinchback, a reporter for the New York-based New Holland Herald barely escapes with his life after his latest "incognegro" story goes bad. But when he returns to the sanctuary of Harlem, he's sent to investigate the arrest of his own brother, charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi.

With a lynch mob already swarming, Zane must stay "incognegro" long enough to uncover the truth behind the murder in order to save his brother — and himself. He finds that the answers are buried beneath layers of shifting identities, forbidden passions and secrets that run far deeper than skin color.

The Great Negro Plot: A Tale of Conspiracy and Murder in Eighteenth-Century New York
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Hardcover: 160 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1 edition (January 23, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1582340994
ISBN-13: 978-1582340999

The astonishing true story of how rumors of a slave revolt led to a summer of persecution and murder in eighteenth-century New York

In 1741, New York City was thrown into an uproar when a sixteen-year-old white woman, an indentured servant named Mary Burton, testified that she was privy to a monstrous conspiracy against the white people of Manhattan. Promised her freedom by authorities if she would only uncover the plot, Mary reported that the black men of the city were planning to burn New York City to the ground. As the courts ensnared more and more suspects and violence swept the city, 154 black New Yorkers were jailed, 14 were burned alive, 18 were hanged, and more than 100 simply “disappeared”; four whites wound up being executed and 24 imprisoned. Even as the madness escalated, however, officials started to realize that Mary Burton might not be telling the truth.

Expertly written by the acclaimed author of Drop and Hunting in Harlem, The Great Negro Plot is a brilliant reconstruction of a little-known moment in American history whose echoes still reverberate today.

Hellblazer: Papa Midnite
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Tony Akins (Illustrator), Dan Green (Illustrator)

Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Vertigo (April 5, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1401210031
ISBN-13: 978-1401210038

"I grew up reading comics—the first thing I ever read on my own was a reprint of Hulk #1 (minus cover, ghetto style). In college, I started reading Sandman and from there got hooked on Vertigo Books. When an opportunity arose to write for Vertigo, I jumped at it. I pitched and idea based around my Great Negro Plot research, and Karen Berger went for it, asking that I use Papa Midnite as a character, who came complete with an existing audience (and of course the movie Constantine was coming out). In general, I prefer creating my own characters and stories, but I saw a chance to take a character that was little more than primitive black stereotype (no disrespect to the great Alan Moore) and turn it into something with more depth, reality. Plus, I got to write for Hellblazer on my first dabble in the medium, how dope is that?" —Mat Johnson

The King of Voodoo has a long history, but where did it all begin? The answer can be found in HELLBLAZER: PAPA MIDNITE, collecting the acclaimed 5-issue Vertigo miniseries that follows the story of the curse that made Midnite immortal, from its origin in 1712 through the failed slave rebellion of 1741 and into the present day, where he continues to pay the price for his original sin.

Check out the entire Papa Midnight: John Constantine -- Hellblazer Special Series

Drop
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Format: Hardcover, 1st ed., 214pp.
ISBN: 1582341044
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Pub. Date: September  2000

"Drop is a hip, contemporary morality tale set on two continents. The novel is at times predictable, but the language is so alive, crispy-fresh and musical that you will find yourself reading aloud. “Bring-Bring me somewhere lovely where people are so alive you can hear their pulses bump-bumping as they pass you on the street,” whines Chris Jones. He is a victim of the Philly ghetto who would sell his soul to escape his fate. He does manage an escape by “pimping perfection” to the public as a top young creative wizard, putting a London advertising agency on the map.  —Black Issues Book Review

 

 

Related Links

The Official Website of Mat Johnson
http://www.niggerati.com/

 

 

 

 

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