Michael Lister Follow

New York Times bestselling and award-winning novelist Michael Lister is a native Floridian best known for his acclaimed John Jordan “Blood” mystery thriller series. Michael grew up in North Florida near the Gulf of Mexico and the Apalachicola River in a small town famous for tupelo honey.

Captivated by story since childhood, Michael has a love for language and narrative inspired by the Southern storytelling tradition that captured his imagination and became such a source of meaning and inspiration. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in theology with an emphasis on story, myth, and narrative.

In the early '90s, Michael became the youngest chaplain within the Florida Department of Corrections. For nearly a decade, he served as a contract, staff, then senior chaplain at three different facilities in the Panhandle of Florida—an experience that led to his first novel, Power in the Blood. Michael's books take readers through the electronically locked gates of the chain-link fences, beneath the looping razor wire glinting in the sun, and into the strange world of Potter Correctional Institution, Florida’s toughest maximum security prison.