In Jenny Johnson’s debut book of poetry, In Full Velvet (Sarabande Books, 2017), she unpacks the queerness of the natural world as a means to rethink and blur the boundaries between what is real and imagined. In doing so, the reader is able to think through the way in which sexuality and gender norms have been crafted by human conceptions and what is determined as ‘natural.’ Johnson holds numerous accolades, including a Whiting Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, an NEA Fellowship, as well as scholarships from the Blue Mountain Center, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yaddo. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at West Virginia University and she is on the faculty of the Rainier Writing Workshop and Pacific Lutheran University’s low-residency MFA program.
