Local published author at NIC

Author and poet Jonathon Johnson spoke at the Writing Center last Wednesday. He is a professor at Eastern Washington University and discussed his works The Little Lights of Town, a book of his short stories, and Pine, a collection of poetry. Though his stories are set in his hometown of Marquette Michigan, he drew inspiration from his family and life, including time spent in North Idaho and the Inland Northwest.  

He said writing can be used as a way to transport the self away from its present circumstances. Using that technique is what inspired him to start writing, after “not being able to live on the farm.”

One of the topics Johnson discussed was what he believes makes a story meaningful. The first factor he mentioned was that “time is the great determiner”, meaning that the best way to determine if something was important was to wait and revisit it later.

Johnson stated that time is on your side as a writer because it is a long process that does not have much of an expiration date. He said that while many athletes’ careers are usually over by forty, a writer’s career may just be beginning.

He also said that he knows a story becomes meaningful when the characters become his friends and take on a life of their own. It can get to the point where he cannot remember if events in his stories were purely fictional or based on real events that happened to him. 

When asked how he thinks of his poetry, he described how he often becomes focused on a particular line that he thinks communicates a theme well. For instance, in his poem “Dispensation,” he focuses on the theme of not owing the dead our loneliness, and the speaker moving on with their life. Johnson said that it functions as a dispensation from grief allowing the speaker to be at peace with life after grief.