{"id":20142,"date":"2023-06-08T12:58:55","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T20:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=20142"},"modified":"2023-06-08T12:59:23","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T20:59:23","slug":"oregon-author-kim-johnson-visits-western","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/oregon-author-kim-johnson-visits-western\/","title":{"rendered":"Oregon author Kim Johnson visits Western"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by: Mirella Barrera-Betancourt<\/span><\/p>\n

On May 31, Kim Johnson \u2014 the author of the best-selling, young adult novel, \u201cThis Is My America\u201d \u2014 visited students and the community to speak on the success of her acclaimed debut novel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnson is the recipient of the Pacific Northwest Book Award and Malka Penn Human Rights Award for Children’s Literature. In addition to writing, Johnson serves as Vice Provost at the University of Oregon, constantly advocating for new methods to teach and educate new generations of students in order for them to thrive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnson said, \u201cIt really is an honor (to be here), especially to be here talking to you not as an administrator, but also talking to you as a creator; as a writer, someone who speaks truth to power or hopes to speak truth to power in the words that I write.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis Is My America\u201d follows the story of Tracy Beaumont, a budding Black student journalist and social activist, fighting to clear her father\u2019s name \u2014 who is sentenced to death row \u2014 as well as prove her brother’s innocence after he becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a white classmate.<\/span><\/p>\n

The event opened with a keynote speaker presentation from Johnson, where she delved, in detail, into the journey she undertook as a blossoming writer; from the realization of her affinity for storytelling, to persevering and maintaining resilience even in the face of adversity and the chain of rejections from literary agents and publishers. In a display of vulnerability, Johnson shared that she spent two years submitting her work to agents, to the point where she eventually hit a total of 150 rejections.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI tell you (this) long story because there are so many times that we see \u2018no\u2019s. There are so many roadblocks, there are so many barriers \u2026 I feel like my purpose in my work is to identify systemic barriers and move them out of the way,\u201d said Johnson. \u201cYou gotta get past the mountain to get to your \u2018yes.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The students and the community were invited to engage in conversation with the author after the keynote speaker presentation through a Q&A session, book signing and a writing workshop; the latter of which was solely offered to students.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There was a question posed by an audience member, which prompted Johnson to disclose that her inspiration \u2014 not only to write, but the inspiration for the protagonist in the novel \u2014 was the lives of the students and leaders she taught and mentored. However, Johnson shares that she sees the protagonist as a small mirrored reflection of herself, pushing against the status quo.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2021, it was announced that \u201cThis Is My America\u201d was selected to be developed as a film adaptation series on HBO Max, after Johnson sold the rights to the novel to a film production company in Los Angeles, California. The writing and filming are in the early planning and development stages.<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnson’s new novel \u201cInvisible Son\u201d is set to release this month. The novel is now available for pre-order.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":20143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}