Author Talk and Book Signing with LuLu Johnson

Join LuLu Johnson for a talk and book signing celebrating her debut chapbook, The Higher Call. Johnson, a poet and art historian, gives voice across 15 poems to Pablo Picasso's most famous muses, informed by her own years working as a life model. The collection explores longing, betrayal, and the cost of sitting still long enough to be made immortal in art. Johnson holds an MFA in Poetry from Georgia State University and now lives in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. Copies of The Higher Call will be available for purchase and signing.

Blending art history with personal insight, The Higher Call offers a rare glimpse into the private world of the artist’s studio. Both a primer on modeling for artists and an art historical imagining, the poems give voice to the women who have long remained silent inside the frame. Across fifteen interwoven poems, LuLu explores themes of longing, betrayal, desire, and the personal cost of sitting still long enough to be made immortal in art.

“The Higher Call offers an intimate glimpse behind the curtain of artists and life models,” writes poet Andrea Jurjević. “Its bold and unflinching language humanizes the model and transforms how we see both art and ourselves as viewers.”

Poet Phillip Shabazz adds, “The Higher Call pulls you onto the model’s stand, where bodies ache, gazes consume, and immortality comes at a cost.” The collection poses the central question: “What price do we pay to become immortal?”

LuLu Johnson turned to art history the day they dissected a live rat in her pre-med biology class.  She went on to earn a BA from Southern Methodist University and an MFA in Poetry from Georgia State University, studying with the late David Bottoms. In Atlanta, LuLu worked as a registrar at Connell/Great American Gallery. She began modeling for artists during graduate school, work she continues to this day.

Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Atlanta Review, Untelling, and others. LuLu now lives in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, where she writes poetry and fiction.

Funny, fearless, and sensuous, The Higher Call challenges readers to reconsider the relationship between artist and subject, and to confront the true stories and emotional realities behind some of Picasso’s most celebrated portraits of the women he loved and misused.