Fenton Johnson

Readings / Talks / Workshops

Friday, May 10, 7 p.m.  520.792.3715

Antigone Books, 411 N. Fourth Street, Tucson

antigonebooks@qwest.net   www.antigonebooks.com

Rev. Rachel Srubas – known to some as you as the partner of Ken McAllister – and Fenton Johnson will be reading at Antigone Books.

Rachel will read from her recently published memoir The Girl Got Up:  A Cruciform Memoir, of which reviewer Bromleigh McCleneghan said, “Forgive the crass assessment, but hers is the only book I’ve ever read in which a pastor bravely talks about how much terrible sex and banal drug use she engaged in as a young person . . . and does it in such a way that any congregation would be proud to have her as its pastor.” 

Inspired by the U of AZ graduate creative writing students’ salon on erotic writing, Fenton will read erotic passages from several of his books, including most notably the (in)famous horse sex scene from Keeping Faith:  A Skeptic’s Journey among Christian and Buddhist Monks, by way of inviting discussion about the connections between spirituality and desire.

Appalachian Writers Workshop

July 28-August 3, 2013

Hindman Settlement School

Hindman, Kentucky

http://www.hindmansettlement.org/Writers

Tomales Bay Workshops

October 16-20, 2013

Marconi Conference Center, Marshall, California, north of San Francisco in Marin County

This workshop will address memoir and journaling as means of deepening our writing and our interior life.  We will discuss how reading and research can complement the contemplative experience.  We will devote particular attention to vivid figurative language as a way of enriching our encounter with the world, on and off the page.  Students will share short samples of their writing – fiction, nonfiction, or poetry — and will be offered prompts designed to provoke questions and deepen their encounter with their writing and the world.  Writers who may be included in the reader:  Anne Lamott, Julian of Norwich, Thomas Merton, Bashō, Augustine of Hippo, Kathleen Norris, Hildegard of Bingen, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Sor Juana Inez, Theresa of Avila, Pema Chodron.   For more information and to register, visit www.writingxwriters.org.

Workshop:  Reading Like a Writer

Saturday, October 13, 10:00 am-3:00 pm   $60

This award-winning author and Kentucky native will provide participants with short readings of classic fiction, poetry, and prose. We will discuss each with the goal of learning lessons in how writers read to develop and fine-tune their craft. The pieces will provide springboards for in-class writing, and we’ll discuss current publishing challenges and opportunities.

Carnegie Center, 251 West Second Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40507  859.254.4175  / www.carnegiecenterlex.org

Panel:  Going Beyond What You Know: Research and The Personal Memoir
Marina Budhos, Kathryn Harrison, Faith Adiele, Fenton Johnson, Bonnie Friedman

Sometimes, memoir is drawn not just from what we know, but from what we discover through research.  This panel will explore how the writer balances research with personal narrative. How does one blend the researcher’s objective findings with the idiosyncratic, personal voice? How to make use of interviews? When does research reshape the narrative? Panelists will share their strategies for balancing research with the craft of a memoir, and offer suggestions for the writing workshop.

Associated Writing Programs 2012 Conference, Friday, March 2, 1:30-2:45 pm, Empire Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, IL

Lecture:   Medical Humanities Speakers Series:

An Intimate Encounter with the Heart: The Physician’s Engagement with Suffering, Loss & the Taking of Life

Wednesday, January 25, noon, Kiewit Auditorium, University of Arizona Medical Center, 1515 N. Campell Avenue, Tucson, Arizona.  Free and open to the public.

Book Discussion, Geography of the Heart

Wednesday, December 21, 4 p.m., Nelson County Public Library, Bardstown, Kentucky, 4 pm.  Free and open to the public.

Workshop:  The Interior Journey: Reading and Writing as Spiritual Practice

with Fenton Johnson

University of Arizona Poetry Center, Mondays, February 20 through April 2, 2012 (no class on March 12), 6:00-8:00 pm

Tuition: $180 + $10 course material fee

This writing workshop arises from a conviction that at their foundation our contemporary challenges are ethical, philosophical, moral, and spiritual.  We will devote particular attention to vivid figurative language as a way of enriching our encounter with the world, on and off the page.  We will explore memoir and journaling as means of deepening our writing and our interior life, and discuss how reading and research can provide a foundation for and complement the contemplative experience.  We will devote particular attention to the calendar, as our meetings lead up to and embrace the great markers of rebirth and renewal—the vernal equinox and its religious correspondents Easter and Passover. As inspiration and model for our writing, we will work from a course reader with selections from Anne Lamott, Flannery O’Connor, Martin Buber, Patricia Hampl, Francine Prose, N. Scott Momaday, Patti Smith, Marilynne Robinson, Brother David Steindl-Rast, and Suzuki Roshi, as well as the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.

For more information and to register:  http://poetry.arizona.edu/classes-workshops

poetry@email.arizona.edu   520-626-3765

Calendar archive:

Panel Discussion:  Medicine and the Humanities:  A Collaboration

Friday, December 2, 12:00-1:30 p.m., Modern Languages Building, Room 445

Dr. Tilly Warnock, UA Professor Emerita, introduces / moderates, as Dr. Rishi Goyal, Ph.D. presents The Narrative Logic of Medicine, and Dr. Ron Grant, MD, MFA, presents  Medical Humanities:  Reflective Writing in Compassionate Healthcare.  Professor Fenton Johnson, discussant.  Free and open to the public.

Workshop and Lecture:  Writing and Reading as Spiritual Disciplines

Tomales Bay Workshops, October 19-23, 2011

http://extension.ucdavis.edu/unit/arts_and_humanities/pdf/112_105_tomales.pdf

Reading and Talk, Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning

Wednesday, March 2, 7:30 p.m. , free

251 W. Second Street, Lexington, Kentucky

For more information:  email K.J. Rawson (k.j.rawson@uky.edu)

Keynote Address, Symposium on Undergraduate Writing

Thursday, March 3, 1 p.m., free and open to public

Paterson Office Tower, 18th Floor, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky

Reading with poet Paul Quenon of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, and Rusty Moe, Indianapolis, Indiana
Thursday, June 17, 2010, 7 pm
Bardstown Art Gallery and Thomas Merton Books, 214 W. Stephen Foster Ave., Bardstown, Kentucky
Jeannette Cantrell, Director (502) 348-6488

Craft Lecture: The Lion and the Lamb, or the Facts and the Truth:  Memoir as Bridge
Wednesday, September 15, 2:30 pm
St. Mary’s College, Moraga, California.

Readings

Wednesday, September 15, 7:30 pm
St. Mary’s College, Moraga, California.

Sixth Annual Clarksville Writers’ Conference
Friday-Saturday, July 30-31, 2010Austin Peay University Center for Excellence in the Creative Arts, Clarksville, Tennessee.

“On Moral Fiction,” a Semester-long Craft of Literature Course
Autumn 2010
MFA Program of St. Mary’s College, Moraga, California.