Julie
Swarstad Johnson
Poet
Photo by Patri Hadad
About Me
Julie Swarstad Johnson is the author of Pennsylvania Furnace (2019), editor's choice selection for the Unicorn Press first book series. Her chapbook Orchard Light is forthcoming from Seven Kitchens Press in 2020. She has served as Artist in Residence at Gettysburg National Military Park, and she is co-editor of Beyond Earth's Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight (University of Arizona Press, forthcoming 2020). She lives in Tucson and works at the University of Arizona Poetry Center.
Listen to interviews with The Seminary Explores and Big Blend Radio. Or read interviews with Under a Warm Green Linden and the Gettysburg Foundation. Or, download a media kit.
Publications
Poems (online)
"And Zion Was Our Mournful Theme" in the Journal of Mennonite Writing (includes audio)
"Tucson Hymnal: Late Night" and "Tucson Hymnal: Parable" at Under a Warm Green Linden (includes audio)
"Valley of the Sun" at Superstition Review (includes audio)
With Wendy Burk and Sarah Kortemeier, three poems on archives at disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory
"What the Susquehanna Tells Me about Blood" at Crab Orchard Review
"The Unicorn in Captivity" at Under a Warm Green Linden (includes audio)
"She Dreams about the Exodus" and "Watershed" at Connotation Press
"Final Descent into Phoenix" at Broadsided Press
"Even These Things Will Pass Away" in Zócalo Magazine
"Waiting for the Bridegroom" in Christianity & Literature
"Reading the Landscape" at Architrave Press
"The Good Year," "Minnie Gulch, July 1998," and "Liminal Space" in Mount Hope
"Self-portrait with Tucson" at Passages North
Three poems on place in the Journal of Mennonite Writing
Find poems in print: Cimarron Review (50th anniversary edition), Zone 3 (32.1), Resonance: A Theological Journal (3.3, online by subscription), Bayou Magazine (63), The Hollins Critic (53.1), and The San Pedro River Review (7.2).
Book Reviews
For recent reviews, see Harvard Review Online, including a review of Trophic Cascade by Camille T. Dungy (Wesleyan University Press, 2017) and Look by Solmaz Sharif (Graywolf Press, 2016).
Older book reviews can be found at Literary Mama, NewPages, Poet Lore (109.1/2), Los Angeles Review, and Rain Taxi Review of Books Online.
Events
03/05/20
3:20 PM | San Antonio, TX
Room 218, Henry B. González Convention Center | Panel discussion at AWP 2020 in San Antonio on the key role libraries play in documenting small press activity of the present. Representatives of five libraries will come together to discuss how they discover and collect chapbooks, small print periodicals, zines, hand-bound books and other hard-to-find ephemera.
03/06/20
1-2 PM | San Antonio, TX
Unicorn Press table (T1238) | Come say hello at the AWP Bookfair and pick up a signed copy of Pennsylvania Furnace.
03/15/20
2:30 PM | Tucson, AZ
"Locals Only: Poetry from the Old Pueblo" panel with Diana Marie Delgado and Sarah Kortemeier. At the UA Student Union, in the Kiva Room.
Reading at the Copper Queen Library
04/21/20
Bisbee, AZ
Time TBA
Reading at Poetic Research Bureau
04/25/20
8 PM | Los Angeles, CA
Reading with Stephen van Dyck, author of People I've Met From the Internet, and Amina Cain, author of Indelicacy.
Reading at Changing Hands (Tempe)
05/08/20
7 PM | Tempe, AZ
Friday Poetry Series at Changing Hands, Tempe location. Open mic after the reading!
Reading at Gettysburg National Military Park
03/03/18
Watch a recording of this event here, thanks to Gettysburg National Military Park.