Language Arts

by Justin Allen

Justin Allen’s Language Arts takes up writing as an integral part of an interdisciplinary art practice. Across poems, essays, lyrics, screenwriting, and drawings, works touch on themes of music and subculture, African diasporic language, visual art, and more, bringing together Allen's numerous influences into one collection.

Justin Allen's Language Arts is the 2022 Open Reading Period Editors' Pick.

Justin Allen is a writer and performer from Northern Virginia. With a background in tap dancing and creative writing, his work often combines a variety of art forms. He has been commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater and The Shed and has held residencies at ISSUE Project Room and the Center for Afrofuturist Studies. He has received support from Franklin Furnace, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Jerome Foundation, and shared his work both stateside and abroad.

240 pages, Paperback

Published September 10, 2024

About the author

Justin was born in Boise, Idaho in 1974. He grad­u­ated from Boise State Uni­ver­sity with a degree in phi­los­o­phy, was named one of the school’s Top Ten Schol­ars, and invited to present the vale­dic­tory address at the com­mence­ment of the Col­lege of Arts and Sci­ences. Soon after, Justin moved to New York City, where he enrolled in Colum­bia University’s Writ­ing Pro­gram, spe­cial­iz­ing in fic­tion and sin­cerely hop­ing to become the next Jack Ker­ouac. While at Colum­bia he wrote what he has later come to call his ‘Bar­bar­ian Story,’ and turned it in for judg­ing by his work­shop class. He expected to weather a fear­some bar­rage of scorn, and was hap­pily sur­prised at how well they took it.

While work­ing on that story, Justin was first intro­duced to Uruk, a pre­his­toric hunter from the jun­gles of sub-Saharan Africa, and the hero of his first novel, Slaves of the Shi­nar. It took him fully six more years, umpteen rough drafts, buck­ets of tears and tor­rents of blood, to fin­ish the novel and get it placed with The Over­look Press. Dur­ing that time he also met and mar­ried his true-love, Day Mitchell, trav­eled with her to Tahiti, New Zealand, Kenya, Belize, Nicaragua, and a myr­iad of other, equally won­der­ful locales, and began work on two new nov­els, The Amer­i­can and Tomor­row­land, and a book of travel essays about the Amer­i­can National Parks.

Along with his writ­ing, Justin also has a pas­sion for clas­si­cal bal­let, tak­ing class as often as six times a week, and per­form­ing occa­sion­ally with such com­pa­nies as Dances Patrelle (for whom he has also worked as admin­is­tra­tive direc­tor), and Eidolon Bal­let in Con­cert. He first began danc­ing while a stu­dent at Boise State Uni­ver­sity, and first per­formed with Idaho Dance Theatre.

Justin is roughly six feet tall, weighs some­where around 185 pounds (often more, to his cha­grin), has dark-brown hair and eyes, and suf­fers from near-sightedness, motion-sickness, and a ten­dency to get angry at air­port per­son­nel. His wife, a licensed social worker, is try­ing to help him over­come this last item, but finds the going hard.

In 2001, Justin and Day adopted a house­plant and affec­tion­ately named her Phil. Wor­ry­ing that Phil was grow­ing up alone, last year they adopted again, and are proud to be the some­what neg­li­gent par­ents of a sec­ond plant, Phil Jr. They live in New York City.

Reviews

[Nora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stayed up too late finishing, five out of five for sure