Warren Lehrer, awarded a 2022 NYSCA (New York State Council on the Arts) Individual Artist Grant in Literature to complete the writing of TRACE: A Surveilled Novel. The grant of $10,000 was submitted through City Lore. It is Lehrer’s third Individual Artist/Sponsored Project grant from NYSCA, his first in the Literature category. 

TRACE is a literary novel that presents as a document dump and is premised on the idea that every file you are reading has been culled with the help of current surveillance technology. The narrator/compiler is an NSA information analyst whose job is to surveil random subjects who are seemingly of no interest whatsoever, to see if by chance any of these unknown unknowns could be national security threats. TRACE is (will be) a cautionary reflection of the hyper-sharing, hyper-monitored and surveilled moment we’re living in and a timeless exploration of complex, flawed, prismatic characters. Lehrer is aiming for a 2024 publication date. Stay tuned.