# Fenton Johnson > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Fenton_Johnson > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Fenton_Johnson.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenton_Johnson > Source revision: 1323098632 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|American writer and professor of English and LGBT Studies (born 1953)}} {{For|the early 20th century poet and writer|Fenton Johnson (poet) }} {{more footnotes needed|date=August 2011}} {{Infobox writer | image = Pedrobandw.jpg | imagesize = 150px | name = John Fenton Johnson | caption = | pseudonym = Fenton Johnson | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1953|10|25}} | birth_place = [Kentucky](/source/Kentucky), United States | death_date = | death_place = | occupation = Author | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | influences = | influenced = | signature = | website = {{URL|http://www.fentonjohnson.com}} }}John '''Fenton Johnson''' is an American writer and professor of English and LGBT Studies{{Cite web |url=https://lgbt.arizona.edu/affiliated-faculty |title=Affiliated Faculty of the Institute for LGBT Studies | LGBT Studies |access-date=2017-12-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180908045315/https://lgbt.arizona.edu/affiliated-faculty |archive-date=2018-09-08 |url-status=dead }} at the [University of Arizona](/source/University_of_Arizona).{{Cite web |url=https://english.arizona.edu/users/fenton-johnson |title=Fenton Johnson | Department of English |access-date=2017-12-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171222052135/https://english.arizona.edu/users/fenton-johnson |archive-date=2017-12-22 |url-status=dead }} ==Life== Johnson was born the youngest of nine children in south-central [Kentucky](/source/Kentucky) to a father who worked as a distiller. At 17 Jonson won a full scholarship to [Stanford University](/source/Stanford_University) where he graduated in 1975 with a B.A. in English. He would go on to earn an M.F.A in creative writing from the [Iowa Writers Workshop](/source/Iowa_Writers'_Workshop).{{Cite journal |last=Creadick |first=Anna |date=1995 |title=Fenton Johnson |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/40934945 |journal=Appalachian Journal |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=160–173 |jstor=40934945 }} In February 2016, University Press of Kentucky marked Fenton Johnson's place in the literature of the state, region, and nation by publishing a new novel, ''The Man Who Loved Birds'', at the same time that it reissues his earlier novels ''Crossing the River'' and ''Scissors, Paper, Rock''. Johnson is also the author of three cover essays in Harper's Magazine, most recently (April, 2015) ''Going It Alone: The Dignity and Challenge of Solitude'', available for reading through his webpage. Links to his media appearances, on Terry Gross's ''Fresh Air'' and on Kentucky Educational Television, may be found on his webpage. His most recent nonfiction book ''Keeping Faith: A Skeptic's Journey'' draws on time spent living as a member of the monastic communities of the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky and the San Francisco Zen Center as a means to examining what it means to a skeptic to have and keep faith. Keeping Faith weaves frank conversations with Trappist and Buddhist monks with a history of the contemplative life and meditations from Johnson's experience of the virtue we call faith. It received the 2004 Kentucky Literary Award for Nonfiction and the 2004 [Lambda Literary Award](/source/Lambda_Literary_Award) for best LGBT creative nonfiction. Johnson is also the author of ''Geography of the Heart: A Memoir''(1996) which received a Lambda Literary Award and the American Library Association Award for best gay/lesbian nonfiction. ''Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays'', a compilation of Johnson's new and selected essays, will be published in 2017. He is currently at work on ''At the Center of All Beauty: The Dignity and Challenge of Solitude'', a book-length meditation based on his 2016 cover essay in ''Harper's'' Magazine. ==Awards== He has received awards from the [Wallace Stegner and James Michener Fellowships in Fiction](/source/Wallace_Stegner_and_James_Michener_Fellowships_in_Fiction) and [National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships](/source/National_Endowment_for_the_Arts_Fellowships) in both [fiction](/source/fiction) and creative [nonfiction](/source/nonfiction). He has also received a Kentucky Literary Award, two [Lambda Literary Award](/source/Lambda_Literary_Award)s for best creative nonfiction, as well as the [American Library Association](/source/American_Library_Association)'s [Stonewall Book Award](/source/Stonewall_Book_Award) for best gay/lesbian nonfiction. He received a 2007 fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation to support completion of his third novel and to begin research and writing on a nonfiction project.{{Cite web |title=Fenton Johnson |url=https://carnegiecenterlex.org/hall-of-fame/fenton-johnson/ |access-date=2025-03-01 |website=Carnegie Center |language=en-US}} ==Bibliography== {{Incomplete list|date=September 2019}} ===Novels=== * {{cite book |title=Crossing the river |publisher=Birch Lane Press |year=1991 }} ** {{cite book |title=Crossing the river |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |year=2016 |orig-year=1991 }} * ''Scissors, Paper, Rock'' (1994), Washington Square Press; (February, 2016) University Press of Kentucky * ''The Man Who Loved Birds'' (February, 2016), University Press of Kentucky * ''At the Center of All Beauty'' ===Memoirs=== * ''Geography of the Heart: A Memoir'' (1996), Scribner's; (1997) Washington Square Press. {{ISBN?}} === Nonfiction === * {{cite book| title=Keeping Faith: A Skeptic's Journey| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pUsVbA_uwtoC&q=poet+inauthor%3AFenton+inauthor%3AJohnson&pg=PA5| publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt| year=2004| isbn=978-0-618-49237-4 }}; (2005) Mariner Books. * ''Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays'', Sarabande Books (2017) {{ISBN?}} * {{cite journal |date=January 2018 |title=The future of queer : a manifesto |department=Essay |journal=Harper's Magazine |volume=336 |issue=2012 |pages=27–34 |url=https://harpers.org/archive/2018/01/the-future-of-queer/ |url-access=limited }} ==References== {{Reflist}} ==External links== {{wikiquote}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20060805084616/http://www.english.eku.edu/SERVICES/KYLIT/johnson.htm KYLIT – A site devoted to Kentucky Writers] A biography of Johnson's life * [http://www.fentonjohnson.com/ "Author's website"] {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Fenton}} Category:1953 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century American novelists Category:American male non-fiction writers Category:American male novelists Category:20th-century American memoirists Category:American gay writers Category:Harper's Magazine people Category:Gay memoirists Category:American LGBTQ novelists Category:LGBTQ people from Kentucky Category:Lambda Literary Award winners Category:Stonewall Book Award winners Category:Novelists from Kentucky Category:San Francisco Zen Center Category:20th-century American male writers Category:LGBTQ educators --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Fenton Johnson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenton_Johnson) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenton_Johnson?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.