Category: Literary Life

Transitions and Auditions

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May is a transitional month in the Valley of the Sun.

Snowbirds have flown away to their full-time nests east and north. Tom and I are left to our creative devices.

Despite the higher temperatures coming soon–100-plus next week–I prefer these quieter, hotter days.

There is more room in our favorite coffee shop where we write and socialize. Less maneuvering through traffic merging on and off highway ramps framed by jagged mountains that remind me I am a westerner now … for nearly nine years.

This morning at the Scottsdale Community College gym Tom and I now frequent (free with our Silver Sneakers membership), Rosalind greeted me with a broad smile.

She read and loved Sixty-Something Days, my latest book and told me she is recommending it to all of her sixty-something friends.

Active-retiree Rosalind laughed when she said, “I’m your target audience.” She offered that it reminded her how important it is for all of us to be grateful for the goodness and love in our lives.

In that moment, she shared a photo of her two, beautiful, three-year-old granddaughters who are the children of her twin adult sons.

As we parted to continue our respective exercise regimens, she volunteered that she will be leaving for Flagstaff for the summer–her own transition to the beauty and cooler temps of northern Arizona–but back in the fall to resume her desert life.

Now that May has arrived, I’m shifting creative gears.

I’ve been working with another chorus member–August–to write and finalize the libretto for Broadway Lights, the next Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus (PHXGMC) concert June 27 and 28 at Tempe Center for the Arts.

It features eight storytelling vignettes that wrap in and around our PHXGMC set of inspiring, fun/funny, and fabulous Broadway tunes.

This evening, August, Darlene (PHXGMC’s assistant artistic director), and I will watch and listen to a stream of chorus members who are auditioning for the nine speaking roles that tell stories (fictionalized ones rooted in reality) of how Broadway music has served as a beacon for our LGBTQ+ community in happy and sad times.

I am proud of my involvement with the chorus as both a second-tenor performer and librettist. At this stage of life, time moves quickly. It’s difficult for me to believe that I have been singing with the chorus for nine years, since Tom and I moved to Arizona in 2017.

As my sixty-ninth birthday fast approaches in early July, this community of friends–truly a safe haven in our chaotic country–provides an ongoing-and-meaningful oasis during these Sixty-Something Days … ones I am grateful for even on the hottest days that surely loom beyond this stretch of ground Tom and I walk along the Crosscut Canal and Papago Buttes.

Looking Over My Shoulder

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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.

Whenever I jump into my writing in the deep end of my emotions, I find a way back to the surface with a new story. Many of them have landed on the pages of my other five books: Tales of a Rollercoaster Operator in 2017; An Unobstructed View in 2018; I Think I’ll Prune the Lemon Tree in 2021; A Path I Might Have Missed in 2023; and Sixty-Something Days in 2025.

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.

Vivid Skies, Vivid Lives

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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.

Fourteen and Me

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This is not a story about some knock-off DNA test that will help you discover your ancestral roots.

Instead, it is a story with no definite answers. A story that will unfold with memories, ideas, thoughts, feelings, words, and sentences. All to be generated by fourteen writers–eleven women and three men–who have joined me (Writer in Residence in February and March) on a three-week memoir-writing odyssey at the Scottsdale Public Library.

Our journey together began February 20 in the SHC program room, in a wing of the Civic Center Libary devoted to Scottsdale history. Who knows, maybe some literary history is about to be made there.

We spent our first thirty minutes learning about each other. The youngest of our cohort is in her early twenties. The oldest beyond ninety. They and the other twelve (mostly in their fifties and sixties) told me in a few sentences why they were drawn to the workshop.

Some have been writing for years. They are fine-tuning their craft. Others are new and perhaps a little intimidated about the idea of sharing their writing with a group of strangers. But with time they will learn the benefit of bringing voice to the words they will assemble on a page.

From my previous workshops, I have learned that leading a memoir-writing session is deeply personal. So, in our first meeting, I worked to create a trusting, respectful space and asked that they also commit to that. It is essential, because when people tell their stories it is often raw and revealing.

After we settled in, we began writing. I gave the group this prompt: “My most vivid or meaningful February memory is …….”

After fifteen quiet minutes of pens scribbling across paper, eight of the fourteen offered to share what they wrote. I will honor our verbal confidentiality agreement and not share the content here but suffice it to say that an array of diverse stories came from that one prompt.

At the end of that exercise, I told them we had just illustrated that–like each of them–their memories, stories, voices are unique. What they have experienced in their lives is worthy of writing and sharing.

In fact, we–as writers–have a responsibility to do so. Especially now in a country brimming with external pressures designed to constrain a myriad of human thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

The group has an assignment this week: to write one-to-two manuscript pages that paint a picture of a setting–a place replete with vivid memories for them personally.

To help prime the creative pump, I read this passage to them from my third book, An Unobstructed View.

***

In June 1980, I left my parents’ home in the rolling suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, to launch my career and create my own life in the relative flatness of northern Illinois. Jimmy Carter’s stay in the White House was winding down, but my hopes were high and trending up, and so would the volume of my days and nights in the Chicago area.

Unlike the state’s long and slender physical shape, I didn’t know my Illinois roots would ever extend far and wide. I couldn’t imagine I would live and work in the Chicago area for the next thirty-seven years–that I would occupy Illinois, and it would inhabit me for the most significant portion of my life.

Yet I would marry; divorce; raise two sons; change jobs multiple times; build a lucrative career; bury both of my parents; find my way out of the closet; live openly as a gay man; discover love again; marry a second time; retire from corporate life; begin a second career as an author; and say goodbye to my Cook County neighbors, family, and friends just a few days shy of my sixtieth birthday for a new adventure and warmer climes in the desert southwest.

All of it happened while I was living in the Land of Lincoln.

***

The room was quiet as I read. Compassion danced across their faces.

I can’t wait to listen to these fourteen writers tell their stories and help shape their literary journeys.

That will happen over the next two Fridays.

Eight Years and Four Books Ago

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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.

If you live in the area, you can register here https://calendar.scottsdalelibrary.org/scottsdaleaz_library/260120702?utm_source=bewith&utm_medium=calendar.

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.

Happy reading, writing, and viewing!

Early Reviews

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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.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FZM2724S?ref_=ast_author_dp&th=1&psc=1

It Just Went Live

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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!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FZM2724S?ref_=ast_author_dp&th=1&psc=1

Early Halloween Treat

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Treats come in all sizes and shapes. Chocolate is always welcome, but typically not as intimate or lasting as positive human interaction.

***

Yesterday I completed another memoir writing workshop at the Scottsdale Public Library. It was the fourth such workshop I’ve led over the past twelve months.

I love facilitating these sessions, because it’s a personal way for me to encourage other writers to nurture their creative ideas and momentum.

This one at Mustang Library included twelve writers–nine women and three men–who wrote and shared their extraordinary, humorous, heartful slice-of-life adventures across the table from one another.

During week one of the three-week workshop, I learned a little about each participant. We spent time building trust. As we began to get comfortable as a group, I assured them that the room we occupy is a safe space for sharing their personal experiences through their writing.

By weeks two and three, we developed an esprit de corps. They sent their stories to me in advance. I offered my encouragement and constructive feedback in person in the following session.

Inevitably, there were contemplative moments and a few tears were shed by one writer on Friday.

As she read her story aloud (a touching, nostalgic reminiscence of watching the joy on her mother’s face as she skated across the ice in the 1960s free of her typical parental responsibilities) the flood gates opened suddenly.

I and everyone in the room verbalized their support for this writer. I also offered her a tissue and a pat on the shoulder.

That was just one of a dozen or more seminal moments shared over a three-week period on Friday afternoons.

In a world otherwise ruled by chaos, we were a community of writers banding together, gliding freely above the fray across the ice of our literary pursuits.

***

This morning, I opened my email to discover this early Halloween treat from a creative husband-and-wife team, who participated in the workshop.

“We enjoyed your memoir class so much; due in large part to your enthusiasm, experience and energy! The content was high quality, and the tone you set of trust was palpable… there is no substitute for that among budding creatives. Thank you so much for your time and care; we’ll hope to cross paths in the new year!”

I don’t expect a ringing endorsement for volunteering my time. But I always appreciate feedback whenever it involves helping other writers find their voices inside the secure walls of a library.

It encourages me to keep giving and confirms my suspicion that I have found a meaningful way to make a true difference in the lives of others.

Book Six

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The middle of October is upon us, and I am addicted to the pumpkin spice lattes at Grounds on 2nd, our favorite haunt in Old Town Scottsdale.

More important, I am delighted to report I have completed the manuscript for another book. It’s called Sixty-Something Days.

Book six is a memoir tapestry that first entered my consciousness around my sixty-fifth birthday in July 2022. I began to closely consider what it means to stay creative and relevant in our later years … especially in our divisive culture enamored with youth but often dismissive of wisdom.

This book explores that idea in episodic ways. It features sixty-five essays, poems, and flashes of fiction, which I first published here over the past three years. Now, I am stitching them together.

With time–and the encouragement of friends and readers–I began to see a thread of truth running through them: that as human beings (lovers of music and nature) we must remember the poignant arc-of-life moments (past and present) while striving to stay involved, influence others through our compassion, and share our hard-earned wisdom.

Those themes appear in my other books, but this one feels more urgent. More emphatic. I feel an obligation to share what I have learned, find beauty and hope wherever we can in our lives, and raise a banner that is a call to action to survive this period of tremendous upheaval in our country.

Currently, I am working closely with Sam, graphic designer extraordinaire, to create a cover and develop the interior format. Sam has partnered with me on all of my books.

Yesterday, he sent me the first galleys for review. I can see book six taking shape. I feel my enthusiasm swelling. If all goes well, I will publish Sixty-Something Days sometime in November.

Stay tuned!

After the Arch

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October is bright and beautiful in central Arizona. The intense heat of summer is gone. Mornings and evenings are cooler.

Back in St. Louis, it was fortuitous that Tom and I decided to visit the Gateway Arch on September 22, because–with the U.S. government shutdown–the Arch and other park facilities across the country staffed by the National Park Service closed October 1. Who knows where this latest setback for the American people will lead?

Still, life goes on.

Beginning October 10, I will teach another memoir writing workshop at Mustang Library in Scottsdale. Tom is leading a film series, called Hollywood Laughs, at the same location on Thursday afternoons until mid-November.

Meanwhile, fall chorus rehearsals are underway for our next Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus (PHXGMC) concert, Let Your Spirit Sparkle, in December at the Orpheum Theatre. I will wear my blue sparkly vest on stage again. This 2025/2026 concert season is my sixteenth consecutive year singing with gay choruses in Chicago and Phoenix. It is a vital part of my life.

Under the dynamic leadership of Antonio and Darlene–our artistic director and assistant artistic director respectively–PHXGMC has grown to more than 150 diverse members. Our voices will be strong when we march in the Phoenix Pride Parade on October 19.

Next month, Kirk will visit us in Arizona for a few days. Even as the mayhem in our country spreads, Tom and I look forward to gathering with Nick and him. We will enjoy a few quiet hours with both of my sons in our newly remodeled, freshly painted desert home.

We will give thanks for our fortunate lives, good health, and meaningful artistic opportunities in our sixty-something years, which have enabled us to have a positive impact on the lives of others in our community.