- Joyce Johnson
Joyce Johnson (born 1935) is an American author of fiction and nonfiction who won a
National Book Critics Circle Award for her memoir "Minor Characters " about her relationship withJack Kerouac .Born Joyce Glassman to a Jewish family in
Queens ,New York , Joyce was raised on theUpper West Side ofManhattan , just around the corner from the apartment ofWilliam S. Burroughs and Joan Vollmer Adams Burroughs.Allen Ginsberg and Kerouac were frequent visitors to Burroughs' apartment.At the age of 13, Joyce rebelled against her controlling parents and began hanging out in
Washington Square . She matriculated atBarnard College at 16, failing her graduation by one class. It was at Barnard that she became friends withElise Cowen (briefly Allen Ginsberg's lover) who introduced her to the Beat circle. Ginsberg arranged for Glassman and Kerouac to meet on a blind date.Johnson's fiction and articles have appeared in "Harper's", "Harper's Bazaar", "New York", "The New York Times Magazine", "The New Yorker", "Vanity Fair" and the "Washington Post". She has written several novels, including "Come and Join the Dance" (1961) and "Bad Connections" (1978).
In "Minor Characters" (Houghton Mifflin, 1983) she looked back at the years 1957 and 1958, the time when Kerouac rose from obscurity to fame with the publication of "
On the Road ". Johnson brought attention to the experiences of women associated with the Beat Generation writers. Other memoirs and anthologies have since been published by and about women of the Beat Generation.Since 1983 she has taught writing, primarily at Columbia University's MFA program, but also at the Breadloaf Writers Conference, the University of Vermont and New York University. "The Children's Wing," the penultimate chapter of her novel "In The Night Cafe" (1989), was a first-prize O. Henry Award recipient. In 1992 she received an NEA grant.
The Johnson and Kerouac correspondence, collected in "" (2000) was followed by another memoir, "Missing Men" (2004).Joyce was married briefly to abstract painter James Johnson, who was killed in a motorcycle accident. From her second marriage to painter Peter Pinchbeck, which ended in divorce, came her son,
Daniel Pinchbeck , also an author and co-founder of "Open City" literary magazine.Listen to
* [http://www.catradiocafe.com/pls/030602.pls The Next Hour from WBAI: Joyce interviewed by Janet Coleman, along with other Kerouac affiliates and scholars. (9/9/07)]
* [http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/20020909.me.13.ram NPR: Joyce Johnson on the publication of "On the Road" (9/9/02)]
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1124423 Fresh Air from WHYY: Joyce Johnson on her time with Kerouac and coming of age in the '50s. (6/15/01)]External links
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2189374,00.html 10/2007 UK Guardian interview with Johnson and her own development through 50s]
* [http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2007/september/tribute-kerouac.php 2007 Smithsonian article by Johnson about Kerouac and the Beats]
* [http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/08/kerouac200708 2007 Vanity Fair article by Johnson about Kerouac and the Beats]
* [http://www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/interviews/johnsonjones.htm "Artful Dodge": 1999 interview with Joyce Johnson]
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