Josephine Johnson

Who was Josephine Johnson?

Josephine Winslow Johnson was an American novelist, poet, and essayist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1935 at age 24 for her first novel, Now in November. Shortly thereafter, she published Winter Orchard, a collection of short stories that had previously appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, The St. Louis Review, and Hound & Horn. Of these stories, "Dark" won an O. Henry Award in 1934, and "John the Six" won an O. Henry Award third prize the following year. Johnson continued writing short stories and won three more O. Henry Awards: for "Alexander to the Park", "The Glass Pigeon", and "Night Flight".

Johnson was born June 20, 1910, in Kirkwood, Missouri. She attended Washington University in St. Louis from 1926 to 1931, but did not earn a degree. She wrote her first novel, Now In November, while living in her mother's attic in Webster Groves, Missouri. She remained on her farm in Webster Groves and completed Winter Orchard in 1935. She published four more books before marrying Grant G. Cannon, editor in chief of the Farm Quarterly, in 1942. The couple moved to Iowa City, where she taught at the University of Iowa for the next three years. They moved to Hamilton County, Ohio in 1947, where she published Wildwood.