Lately, I feel like an anxious hummingbird, flitting about from one branch to another. Zooming in and out, searching for creative inspiration. Trying to find sweet nectar that will help me link one idea to the next.
Maybe it’s the late-summer desert doldrums. The intense Sonoran heat has worn me down. I don’t feel the impetus to write here as frequently as I once did.
Even so, I have experienced two moments of writing bliss in the past week. Both led me to draft deeply personal poems for members of my family–chosen and otherwise. At some point, I may decide to share them publicly, but not now.
Maybe this is simply what it feels like to be living in my “late sixties going on seventy” (sounds like a parody of a song from The Sound of Music) in a world gone mad.
All the while, I try to nourish myself.
I try to help others I love who have lost jobs or are battling cancer.
I play word games on my phone when I wake up each day.
I recall the stunning scenes and pine scents of western Canada.
I pack for my younger son’s wedding in Chicago this weekend.
I squeeze in another trip to the gym.
I watch the young-and-promising St. Louis Cardinals I root for self-destruct again in the late innings.
I download the music for my December choral concert and prepare for my next rehearsal.
I socialize with friends away from the heat produced in the Valley of the Sun.
I take afternoon naps to reboot my brain.
I prepare to lead another memoir writing workshop in October.
I recoup with my husband at home. We enjoy quieter moments in the confines of our Arizona abode.
Through it all, I wonder when or if I will rediscover the time and energy to complete another book.
I live in the Sonoran Desert and the Sonoran Desert lives in me. That’s been the case for nine years. My most prolific ones as a writer.
The language of the desert–like grains of sand that blow in through the door–is now part of my creative being.
Shimmering sunsets. Slithering lizards. Skittish quail. Stray cats. Spiky cacti and succulents. Scattering snowbirds. And those are just a sample from the letter “s”.
When I served as a “Writer in Residence” at the Scottsdale Public Library last spring, I prompted the writers in my workshop to explore the role setting plays in the stories of their lives.
I asked them to consider a place in their lives that is or was prominent and how that place might be considered a character in what they have to say. In the stories they want to show and tell.
The places I have lived or frequented have certainly provided texture to my existence and informed my perspective. The orange earth of the Carolinas. The rolling hills of Missouri. The flatlands of Illinois. The rugged buttes of the Arizona desert.
They represent distinct periods in my life, and–in hindsight–I now understand better why they each deserve their proximity across my body of literary work, six books … a lifetime of stories.
The heat here in July is intense. But it is bearable because the Sonoran Desert–even in its most torrid state–is otherworldly.
At times it feels as if I am living on the moon. The astonishing natural beauty and stately saguaros–sentinels that stand tall in valleys and on hillsides here–have led me to a creative destination outside the orbit of my midwestern sensibilities.
One where I “write on” … as I just celebrated my sixty-ninth birthday and begin this final lap in my sixties. Learning and growing. Teaching and influencing.
Standing tall as a gay man, a husband, a father, a writer. Proud as a saguaro despite my visits to the cardiologist and dermatologist to manage my personal frailties. Rooted to this vivid place, the Valley of the Sun, that is my home.
***
Note to those of you who live in the Phoenix metropolitan area: On Thursday, July 16, from 5 to 7 p.m., I will be signing and selling copies of my latest book, Sixty-Something Days, at Grounds on 2nd in Old Town Scottsdale, located at 3703 N. 69th St.
This charming neighborhood place (coffee and wine bar) is one of my favorite spots in our Scottsdale, Arizona, community. It truly is an inclusive, creative space my husband Tom and I frequent to write, read, and chill with friends. In fact, I wrote and edited a considerable portion of my latest book there.
If you are in the area, stop by to sell hello, grab a book and a glass of wine. I also will have a few copies of my other five books–memoirs, poetry, and short fiction–on hand in case you are looking for options to add to your summer reading list.
In April 2026, friends at the Scottsdale Public Library gave me this shirt after I completed my “Writer in Residence” stint there.
Back and forth from one end of the pool to the other on this hotter-than-average, magnificent March morning. March 24, 2026, from 9:00 to 9:30 a.m. to be precise. Thirty lengths in the deep end of Eldorado Pool in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Somehow, I wrangled my own lane today. I don’t mind sharing but always feel freer on unobstructed Tuesdays and Thursdays. There are fewer swim-class participants to contend with on those days and–now that the Cactus League baseball games have ended–some of the snowbirds have begun to flock home.
Breathing every eight or ten strokes, looking over my right shoulder, swimming south to north, I spy the blazing sun that threatens my sensitive skin and the wispy-white contrail of a commercial plane flying high above.
Serendipitously, the repetitive swimming motion reminds me what I want to write about today. It is the tenth anniversary of publishing my first book: From Fertile Ground.
On March 24, 2016, Barack Obama was president. I didn’t imagine the waves of what was to come: the growing political insanity, the dismantling of once-reliable American institutions, the general implosion of our democracy in one decade. Who could?
Back then, Tom and I were snowbirds–splitting time between our homes in Mount Prospect, Illinois, and Scottsdale, Arizona.
I wrote most of my inaugural book–a three-generation writer’s mosaic about love and loss in my family–from the suburban flatness of northern Illinois.
But working online–back and forth like a swimmer logging laps between my editor and book designer in Nashville, Tennessee, and me in Scottsdale–I made my final edits in the rugged western landscape of the Grand Canyon State.
I remember the pride of holding the first physical copy of my first book later that week. I know I cried. It was a release of joy and amazement. Most definitely, a seminal moment I shared with my husband.
Sadness crept in, too, because I had written the book to process my grief after my mother’s passing. In a physical sense, I wasn’t able to celebrate that literary moment with her.
But I also know that writing about her and her wisdom-filled letters, my father and his unrealized poetry, my grandfather and fifty-three years of diary entries, and the general sense of freedom I felt visiting my grandparents in the 1960s at their rambling North Carolina farm allowed me to create a healing path out of my grief.
It was–and still is–a story I was meant to write and publish. One I wanted to share with others navigating the devastation of grief.
In the past ten years since From Fertile Ground was born, writing has become that free, unbridled swimming lane that is purely mine. Welcome waves of water and creativity running from my mid-fifties to my late sixties.
Of course, I take pride in that body of work and–more recently–find it tremendously gratifying to share what I have learned with other writers, who need an experienced coach … and a few practical ideas … to tell their own stories.
Today, I also pause and wonder–with a touch of sadness as I write this–how many more stories lie ahead for me. Though I still feel strong, capable, creative, and alive in these golden years swimming back and forth under the Arizona sun, I also feel more vulnerable.
Part of it is the process of aging. The other is the narrowing swim lanes of American society that constrain freedom and the expression of ideas.
Having said that, I choose to end this story on a positive note. Today, I choose to relish the goodness of my life with Tom in this rugged landscape. To give thanks for all the stories that have come from fertile ground over the past ten years … as well as those I have salvaged from the depths of the pool looking over my shoulder to beloved people and places that now live on the page.
In mid-February, fourteen gathered around a long, rectangular table with me.
Now, as sunset approaches on this “Writer in Residence” version of my memoir-writing workshop, the group has winnowed to a tenacious, courageous ten. Eight women and two men intent upon writing and sharing stories from their vivid lives.
In less than three weeks, this talented group has bonded over personal stories of deep reflection, relationships, transformation, and wonder. These are a collection of some of the images and settings I will remember from the pages of our storied moments together:
Recalling the lingering, indelible scent of a father’s shaving creme permeating a modest 1960’s back bathroom;
Uprooting a life to care for an aging parent only to discover new love and an unanticipated chapter in an unlikely land;
Finding the energy and conviction to finish that marathon that no one in her family thought she would complete decades ago;
Channeling every ounce of strength to leave an abusive relationship and find much-needed support;
Recounting an early-in-life adventure to Los Angeles to fulfill a California dream;
Forgiving a gang of grackles for their messy transgressions;
Revisiting and releasing decades of shame and blame for the loss of a cow and calf in the barn of one’s rural past;
Celebrating the sacred space of freedom and unbridled joy forged inside a first car; and
Trudging along a circuitous trail to discover a meadow of brilliant fireflies dancing on the crest of a hill.
My role has been to provide tools, encouragement, and a safe place for these and other creative odysseys to emerge, land on the page, gain traction, and marry with the proud and animated vocal cords of these ten inspiring individuals.
On March 6, the sun sets on our journey together. Before we depart, I will encourage my newest friends to keep writing.
Together, we also will give thanks for the creative talent that lies within each of us … and the collective magic we manufactured on three consecutive Fridays in an otherwise ordinary Civic Center conference room on the first floor of a remarkable community space: the Scottsdale Public Library.
This week, I began my two-month writer-in-residence stint at the Scottsdale Public Library.
This magnificent moment never appeared on my personal viewfinder when I stepped away from my communication consulting career twelve years ago. (I was mired in grief after my mother’s death.) But maybe it should have.
I had spent thirty-four years writing for small, medium, and large-sized companies. Helping them tell their stories. So, I had spent a good deal of time honing my writing craft. But it was never personal.
Finally, in February 2014, I began to tell my stories. That led to my first book, From Fertile Ground.
It is a memoir, which I published in 2016. Now, five books and a decade later, I’m coaching aspiring writers, sharing what I have learned along the way.
On Monday afternoons in February and March, I’ll be meeting one-on-one here in The Alcove, a triangular-shaped office at the Scottsdale Public Library, with other storytellers.
(I also will lead a three-part, memoir-writing workshop for a group of sixteen writers in February and March in a space around the corner from The Alcove.)
It will be my pleasure–my honor really–to help guide young and old participants on their creative journeys. No doubt, I will learn a few important things from them, too.
More than anything, if I can help others by unlocking or fine-tuning their writing prowess and passion, then I will have done my job.
We must continue to record and share our personal truths, our fears, our dreams, our memories with others without fear of repercussions.
I believe that is especially significant at this moment in American history.
Inside The Alcove or outside in the everyday world, let’s all vow to keep writing in 2026.
Because art–and that certainly includes good writing– informs, engages, entertains, inspires, and spurs the heart, mind, and spirit. It helps us develop greater compassion for one another and reach new heights.
I believe we can do all that and more by telling our stories.
Eight years and four books ago, it was January 20, 2018.
I hawked my first two books–From Fertile Ground and Tales of a Rollercoaster Operator–in the vestibule of the Civic Center location of the Scottsdale Public Library with dozens of other Arizona writers at a popular local author book fair.
It was a fun, exhilarating Saturday. I greeted book lovers, exchanged ideas with other creative writers, and even sold a half dozen books.
When Covid came along two years later, right after the February 2020 local author event, library management decided to nix the annual gathering permanently.
It was one of many personal losses in a world where we were all forced to retreat to save ourselves. We had to discover new ways (thank you, technology) of being together without really being together.
I can tell you this. I wasn’t sure Tom and I would survive the Covid ordeal. But, like you, we did … with the help of in-home creative strategies and life-saving vaccines.
I certainly didn’t imagine I would write and publish four more books between 2018 and 2026. But that happened, too.
Isn’t it remarkable, how life has a way of sending us a mix of ominous clouds and sunny skies? Often, we don’t know which will appear next on the horizon. Or in what form.
Case in point. Even now as the walls of democracy feel as if they are caving in upon us in the United States, the Scottsdale Public Library has asked me to be a Writer in Residence in February and March at the same location depicted in this photo.
Eight years ago, I didn’t have this moment on my Bingo card or expect it would become a new chapter in my life journey. But it will. My role will include two components:
I have developed and will lead a 2.0 version of my Memoir-Writing Workshop (which I facilitated four times in 2024 and 2025) on three consecutive Friday afternoons: February 20, February 27, and March 6. Up to sixteen writers will participate.
Separate from the workshop, I also will offer thirty-minute, one-on-one writing coaching sessions between 1 and 2 p.m. on Mondays in February and March (in an office near the workshop location).
This will give folks who aren’t able to make the workshop a chance to receive feedback on their writing. (The library is creating a process to register for the individual sessions in advance. I will ask writers to bring just a page or two of their writing to make the experience productive and manageable.)
At any rate, I am thrilled and honored to be a Writer in Residence at the Scottsdale Public Library. It is a creative haven I have come to love in the eight and a half years Tom and I have lived in Arizona … where my movie-loving husband has created quite a following with every one of his film series.
The next one (Movies That Matter: Hollywood Families 1970-1996) begins next Monday at 3 p.m. Tom will lead film discussions and screenings, beginning with a cultural primer on the American family on January 26. Then, for the following eight Monday afternoons, he will show these fabulous eight films: Moonstruck, I Never Sang for My Father, Breaking Away, Kramer vs. Kramer, Ordinary People, Terms of Endearment, The World According to Garp, and The Birdcage.
Hopefully, this story is giving you the impetus to rediscover the programs offered at your local library … no matter where you live.
As a one-man-book-writing-and-selling band, I find myself switching hats from creative storyteller to active listener to self-promoter on a daily basis.
Today, in the waning moments of November, self-promotion is taking precedence. After all, if I don’t believe in the viability of my storytelling capability, who will?
Happily, I’ve begun to receive early reviews of my latest book, Sixty-Something Days … posted online, sent via text, and offered enthusiastically in person.
Feedback in any form is better than silence. But it is especially meaningful when it is specific … when it is unsolicited … when it is affirming.
As this Thanksgiving weekend winds down, I give thanks for these three readers who–in recent days–took time out of their busy lives to tell me what they think of Sixty-Something Days.
***
J wrote the following review on Amazon … “I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author, Mark Johnson, shares with us his intimate life story of personal growth, overcoming challenges, and being true to those around him, and most importantly, to himself, even under difficult circumstances. Told in the style of a memoir, with essays, poems, and fiction, Sixty-Something Days, shows us all what it takes to be better friends and spouses, members of our communities, and citizens. This world would be a better place if we were all more like Mark Johnson. Highly recommended.”
N sent me this message via text … Good morning! I am just sitting down to read your Sixty-Something Days, and the first pages have me feeling happy! Sixty-five Thoughts (the name of one of the early essays) are right on and I will share some of them as I move thru life. Thanks for writing this book and I look forward to reading the rest!
D greeted me in person with a smile at a recent event … “I have to tell you I’m just loving your book. The stories are brief but meaningful. Strung together, they produce something much greater. I’m about to begin 2025 (the book is organized by years) and I don’t want your book to end!”
***
Perhaps I have sufficiently enticed you to read my latest book. If so, click the link below.
This is a momentous day for me. My sixth book just went live on Amazon.
Sixty-Something Days is the story of my post-65 quest to stay relevant creatively. It is a collection of my best essays, poems, and short fiction from 2022 to 2025.
The book is an artistic tapestry of my writing, singing, teaching, learning, growing, and surviving journey … with family and chosen family … connecting one leg of my life (my midwestern past) with another (my western present) during this period of tremendous upheaval in our country.
In my heart, I know this book will resonate with many of you–my loyal followers–who like me continue to strive to nurture and protect the artists, educators, animals and nature, and diverse disenfranchised people in our communities.
I hope you’ll take a few minutes to click the link below and be among the first to buy a copy. Thank you for your support of my creative pursuits!
In the late 1970s, I interviewed my father’s older sister, Aunt Thelma, for a college folklore project. Sitting across the table from me in her suburban north St. Louis kitchen, she waxed on about her philosophy of life.
“Honey, we’re all just ships passing in the night,” Thelma offered with a faraway look in her eyes. “We have to make the most of the time we have together.”
My beloved, charismatic, animal-loving aunt has been gone for twenty-six years. I miss her, but I don’t think about her often. However, she is on my mind this week.
Not because she died in October 1999. Instead, it is the wisdom of her words that apply to a recent development in my life.
Poly–the gray-and-white stray cat I’ve written about frequently–has disappeared. She’s been gone for about a month. None of our neighbors have seen her recently either.
It’s possible that she has become someone’s indoor cat, but I doubt she would stand for that. She is/was a free spirit.
Instead, I fear she may be a casualty of a series of monsoon storms that swept through the Phoenix area in late September and early October. Or, perhaps, a random coyote nabbed her.
I miss our morning moments together … seeing her curled on the blue cushion of one of our wicker chairs beneath our kitchen window.
I miss watching her twirling acrobatics on our sidewalk, hearing her frantic meows as Tom or I opened another can of Sheba sustainable tuna and spooned it into a chipped ramakin for her to devour on our kitchen floor.
If Poly is gone permanently, she certainly added a playful, natural dimension of love to our Polynesian Paradise community, since early May 2021 when I first spotted her peering down at me from a neighbor’s roof.
If you follow my blog, you know Poly inspired a litany of cat tales that appeared here. They are warm and silly Arizona chapters I never would have imagined writing a decade ago.
It is ironic that Poly vanished about the time I completed the manuscript for my latest book, Sixty-Something Days, which is now in the final stages of production. I will publish it sometime in November.
The good news is several stories of my feral friend appear prominently in the book. The time we spent together, like two ships passing in the night, will have a literary life, because she has added an unexpected dimension to my Arizona sunset years.
Now–on this bewitching Friday as my book follows Poly’s example and prepares to set sail–that unlikely bond between two men and a lovable, mysterious feline character will exist on the pages for anyone who cares to read about it.
