Clayton, John J.

JOHN J. CLAYTON has taught modern literature and fiction writing as professor and then Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, since 1969 and has taught as Visiting Professor at Mt. Holyoke College and Hampshire College. He has long been mining the fusion, the intersection, of psychology and spirituality.

Minyan is his fourth collection of short stories. He is author of five novels, most recent Taking Care of Charley. Mitzvah Man, his fourth novel, received the Bronze Award from the Book of the Year Awards in Literary Adult Fiction, and Kuperman’s Fire, his third novel, about criminal evil, Jewish heritage, and the miracle of survival, was made into a Blackstone Audiobook. He has written two books of literary criticism: Saul Bellow: In Defense of Man and Gestures of Healing, a psychological study of the modern novel.

Clayton’s stories have appeared in AGNI, Virginia Quarterly Review, TriQuarterly, Sewanee Review, a dozen times in Commentary; in Kerem, Notre Dame Review, Missouri Review and The Journal. His stories have won prizes in O.Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. His collection Radiance, won the Ohio State University award in short fiction and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. “The Man Who Could See Radiance” was read at Symphony Space in New York and has been aired often on NPR since fall, 2001, as part of the Selected Shorts series. It has been included in the audio anthology, Getting There From Here: Best of Selected Shorts.