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
Reading at Antigone Books
01/24/20
6PM | Tucson, AZ
Reading with Eleanor Wilner, author most recently of Before Our Eyes: New and Selected Poems, 1975-2017
Mennonite Arts Weekend
02/08/20
Cincinatti, OH
Reading and workshop at weekend-long celebration of Mennonite artists, February 7-9, 2020. More information here.
Reading at Bexley Public Library
02/10/20
7PM | Bexley, OH
Reading with Melissa Michal, author of Living on the Borderlines: Stories
Tucson Festival of Books
03/15/20
Time TBA | Tucson, AZ
Panel with Diana Marie Delgado and Sarah Kortemeier
Reading at the Copper Queen Library
04/21/20
Bisbee, AZ
Time TBA
Reading at Gettysburg National Military Park
03/03/18
Watch a recording of this event here, thanks to Gettysburg National Military Park.