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Heather Taylor Johnson Heather Taylor Johnson i(A79714 works by) (a.k.a. Heather Johnson)
Born: Established: Minnesota,
c
United States of America (USA),
c
Americas,
;
Gender: Female
Arrived in Australia: 1999
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BiographyHistory

Heather Johnson moved from America to Adelaide in 1999. Since then she has completed a Masters degree in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide and gone on to do a PhD. She has been very active in the literary scene, belonging to the Kaleidoscopic Poetry Troupe, and has read poetry at a number of events, both as a member of the troupe and as an individual.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

Selfish Ghosts 2022 single work essay
— Appears in: Island , no. 165 2022; (p. 6-9)
'It's 1978-79 and in an abandoned warehouse in New York City, at a diner slightly out-of-focus, on a crowded subway pistoling through Brooklyn, seen pissing in a toilet in a dilapidated cubicle is Arthur Rimbaud. Rimbaud's in Coney Island and at the Hudson River sex piers. He's shooting up heroin. He is masturbating. He is pointing at Jesus graffitied on a wall. He is holding a gun to his head. Says multi-form visual artist David Wojnarowicz of the more than 200 photographs he took of his friends - and possibly himself - wearing a cut-out photocopied Rimbaud mask, 'I had Rimbaud come through a vague biographic& outline of what my past had been—the places I had hung out in as a kid, the places I starved in or haunted on sonic level.'
2022 winner Island Nonfiction Prize
y separately published work icon Shaping the Fractured Self Crawley : UWA Publishing , 2017 10863514 2017 anthology poetry

'Of course not all great art has its genesis in pain, and not all pain – not even a fraction – leads to the partial consolations of art. But if lancing an abscess is the surest way to healing, can poetry offer that same cleansing of emotional wounds?

'Shaping the Fractured Self showcases twenty-eight of Australia’s finest poets who happen to live with chronic illness and pain. The autobiographical short essays, in conjunction with the three poems from each of the poets, capture the body in trauma in its many and varied moods. Because those who live with chronic illness and pain experience shifts in their relationship to it on a yearly, monthly or daily basis, so do the words they use to describe it.

'Shaping the Fractured Self gives voice to sufferers, carers, medical practitioners and researchers, building understanding in a community of caring.' (Publication summary)

2018 winner Mascara Avant-garde Awards Anthology
y separately published work icon Jean Harley Was Here St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2017 10199703 2017 single work novel

'Jean Harley – wife, mother, lover, dancer – is a shining light in the lives of those who know and love her. But when tragedy strikes, what becomes of the people she leaves behind? Her devoted husband, Stan, is now a single father to their young son, Orion. Her best friends, Neddy and Viv, find their relationship unravelling at the seams. And Charley, the ex-con who caused it all, struggles to reconcile his past crimes with his present mistakes. Life without Jean will take some getting used to, but her indelible imprint remains.

'Jean Harley Was Here is a touching and original exploration of love, relationships, and the ways in which we need each other.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2017 shortlisted Readings Prizes Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction
Last amended 16 Sep 2021 11:19:38
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