Denis Johnson



Denis Hale Johnson (born 1949) is an American poet and fiction writer best known for his short-story collection Jesus' Son (1992) and his novel Tree of Smoke (2007). He has also written plays and non-fiction.

Life
Johnson was born in 1949 in Munich, West Germany. He holds an M.F.A. degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he has also returned to teach. He received a Whiting Writer’s Award in 1986 and a Lannan Fellowship in Fiction in 1993.

Johnson first came to prominence when his short story collection Jesus' Son (1992) was adapted into the 1999 film of the same name, which was named one of the top ten films of the year by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Roger Ebert. Johnson has a cameo role in the film as a man who has been stabbed in the eye by his wife.

Johnson's plays have been produced in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Seattle. He is the Resident Playwright of Campo Santo, the resident theater company at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco.

In 2006-2007, Johnson held the Mitte Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

Personal life
Johnson is twice divorced and lives with his third wife, Cindy Lee, in Arizona and Idaho. Johnson has three children, two of whom he homeschooled; in October, 1997 he wrote an article for Salon.com in defense of homeschooling.

Recognition

 * 1981, National Poetry Series award, for The Incognito Lounge
 * 1983, The Frost Place poet in residence
 * 1986, Guggenheim Fellowship
 * 2002, Aga Khan Prize for Fiction from The Paris Review, for Train Dreams
 * 2007, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist, for Tree of Smoke

Poetry

 * The Man Amongst the Seals (Stone Wall Press, 1969)
 * Inner Weather (Graywolf Press, 1976)
 * The Incognito Lounge (Random House, 1982)
 * The Veil (Knopf, 1987)
 * The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly: Poems Collected and New (HarperCollins, 1995)

Novels

 * Angels (1983)
 * Fiskadoro (1985)
 * The Stars at Noon (1986)
 * Resuscitation of a Hanged Man (1991)
 * Already Dead: A California Gothic (1998)
 * ''The Name of the World (2000)
 * Train Dreams (2002)
 * Tree of Smoke (2007)
 * Nobody Move (2009)

Short story collection

 * ''Jesus' Son (1992)

Plays

 * Hellhound on My Trail
 * Shoppers Carried by Escalators into the Flames
 * Soul of a Whore
 * Purvis

Screenplays

 * The Prom (1990) (Directed by Steven Shainberg)

Non-fiction

 * Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond (essays) (2001)