Interviews

Fenton in Conversation with Margaret Gibson, Connecticut Poet Laureate at Haystack Literary Festival

Fenton discusses solitude in the creative arts with Connecticut Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson at the Haystack Book Festival in Norfolk, Connecticut. Watch here. (October 2, 2021)

Fenton in Conversation with Katherine Seligman

Fenton in Conversation at Denver’s Tattered Cover Books with Katherine Seligman, winner of this year’s Bellwether Prize, with her new novel At the Edge of the Haight. (February 11, 2021)

Fenton In Conversation with Author Dianne Aprile

Fenton in conversation with author Dianne Aprile on Seattle Town Hall’s virtual stage. Watch here. (November 8, 2020) 

Review for At the Center of All Beauty – August

A review and interview with Tom Eblen of WEKU, the Lexington, Kentucky public radio station, for his show Eastern Standard and his blog Under Main. (August 31, 2020)

Interview in The Rumpus

Missoula, Montana Métis poet and essayist Chris La Tray interviews Fenton on The Rumpus. (June 29, 2020) 

WritersCast Interview – June

Writer David Wilks interviews Fenton for his podcast “Writerscast”—first David’s context and review. (June 14, 2020) 

Arizona Spotlight Interview 

The conversation with Arizona Spotlight, an Arizona Public Media podcast hosted by Mark McLemore, covers alternative ways of being happy and the valuation of friendship, and extends into a director’s cut a little lower on the page. (May 27, 2020)

Think Humanities Interview

Think Humanities, a Kentucky Humanities podcast hosted by Bill Goodman, covers service, bacteria, surprising relationships, early role models, flower arranging, hiking the Mont Sainte-Victoire, lime mousse, and more. [audio] (May, 2020) 

Interview in The Gardan

Kate Moses interviews Fenton “on solitude, artistry, and his new book” for the inaugural issue of The Gardan, the journal of Craigardan, an education nonprofit based in Keene, NY that programs residencies, courses, and workshops “at the nexus between innovation in agricultural practice, scholarly research, and the arts.” (Fall 2019) 

The Book of Pride interviews Fenton

Fenton is featured as one of seventy-five elders (say it aint so!) interviewed in The Book of Pride, edited by Mason Funk, the first publication of the Los Angeles-based LGBTQ archive Outwords. Outwords is offering photographs, interviews in print, and video interviews of leaders and activists on the front lines of the LGBTQ movement, from the 1960s to the present. Check out the site, and its superb interviews, and buy the book, available right now  in independent bookstores across the country. (May 21, 2019)

Tucson Author Fenton Johnson Again Draws From Kentucky Roots

Christine Wald-Hopkins profiles Fenton and reviews three of his books in Tucson’s Arizona Daily Star. (July 2, 2016)

One to One with Bill Goodman

Bill Goodman hosts Fenton on Kentucky Educational Television’s One to One to discuss Fenton’s novel The Man Who Loved Birds and the recent reissues of earlier novels, Crossing the River and Scissors, Paper, Rock. (March 27, 2016)

Silas House Interviews Fenton Johnson on WUKY

Bestselling author and activist Silas House hosts Fenton on WUKY public radio Lexington to discuss Fenton’s The Man Who Loved Birds. The recording is interspersed with really fine music selected by Silas. (March 14, 2016)

Inspired by Monks, a Writer Embraces His Life of Solitude

For her show Fresh Air on NPR, Terry Gross interviews Fenton about the roots of his book At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life. (March 12, 2015)

Season of Reflection

Jason Howard profiles Fenton in the Louisville weekly magazine LEO. (May 29, 2013) 

For more information or to interview Fenton Johnson, please contact him.