My Monticello(60)

With gratitude to the workshops and residences I’ve had the privilege to attend with their fabulous teachers and writers: Creative Nonfiction with Lauren F. Winner; FAWC in P-town, led by David Updike; Tin House Summer Workshops, led by Aimee Bender, and again, ten years later, led by Claire Vaye Watkins (where Lance Cleland belted out “Wonderwall”); the ladies at Nimrod Writers, led by Cathryn Hankla and Charlotte Leslie Gregg; the gang at Doe Branch Ink, led by Marjorie Hudson; Southampton Writers Conference, led by Lauren Groff; and the folks at VCCA. Thank you to everyone at Hedgebrook for feeding and caring for women writers like me and for the lush grounds and lovely cabins where we could flip through journal entries of those who came before us. Thank you to my Hedgebrook sisters, Dana Fitz Gale, Elaine Kim, Ashley Lucas, Jaclyn Chan, Mahreen Sohail, Rena Priest, Zeeva Bukai, Margarita Ramirez Loya, Sonora Jha, and Sadia Hassan, with whom I fed fresh apricots to the llamas.

Thank you so much to those who volunteered to read and give feedback or offer big support for these particular stories outside of any workshop and for no good reason. Family and community members, friends and bygone schoolmates, too many folks to name, still I will try: Adam Nemett, Amy Wissekerke, Beth Rader, Bradfield Davison, Conover Hunt, David A. Martin, Dolly Joseph, Eboni Bugg, Elizabeth Bales Frank, ézé Amos, Jeanne Bollendorf, Jenn McDaniel Russo, Jessica Freemont, Jessica Kingsley, Jim Respess, Joanne Mann, Jody Hobbs Hesler, Julian Calvet, Lauren Ryan, Leslie M. Scott-Jones, Linda “Mimi” Hunt-Byrd, Marnie Allen, Mary Micaela Murray, Paul Rosen, Phil Varner, Rebecca Duncan, Sebastian Romero, Talia Kolluri, Taylor Harris, Victoria Dougherty, Vijay Owens, and all of you who chimed in on a stray writerly query on social media.

Thank you to those who’ve taught or read stories or essays that I’ve written. Thank you to all the writers whose words helped me to more clearly see the world or a place for myself in it.

Thank you to all of my young art students—you are an endless source of inspiration. I hope you keep learning and shaping the world through art forever. Thank you to my dear friends, and to my extended families, aunties and uncles and myriad cousins. Thank you to my storyteller mother, my judicious father, my bighearted big brother, my kind sis-in-law, and my truth-teller son. (I want to leave you a better world, but I’m afraid I may only leave you stories of longing for it.)

Thank you to my partner in life and artmaking, Billy, for your encouragement, dedication, and for making me laugh to the point of tears nearly daily. Thank you for talking me off the ledge, and taking all of the photographs, and fixing the tech; for bringing me luxe ramen or the perfect sandwich, and so on: All of it is remembered. All of it is our life. You are a shining star.





ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s writing has appeared in Guernica, the Guardian, Phoebe, Prime Number, and elsewhere. Her short story “Control Negro” was featured in Best American Short Stories 2018, guest edited by Roxane Gay, and was read live by LeVar Burton as part of PRI’s Selected Shorts series. She has received fellowships from Hedgebrook, Tin House, and VCCA. A veteran public-school art teacher, Johnson lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia. You can sign up for email updates here.