After my mother died in 2013, I was searching for answers and a new path beyond my grief. I left my corporate job in 2014 and began to sift through a mountain of wisdom-filled letters my mother had sent to my sons and me during her retirement years.

About that time, I perused more than fifty years of diary entries my maternal grandfather left behind about his rural life in North Carolina as a hard-working farmer. That’s when my illumination came. What if I could find a compelling way to weave together both of their stories with my own narrative as a gay man coming to terms with my past and my grief?

The result is From Fertile Ground: The Story of My Journey, My Grief, My Life, a three-generation memoir and writer’s mosaic. It’s the story of my quest to unlock my grief and rediscover my southern roots. Along the way, the book examines our human desire to make sense of our heritage, find our own path, and leave our mark on the world.

Interested in learning more about From Fertile Ground? Listen to my podcast interview on The Authors Show.

Follow this link to purchase a Kindle or paperback version of From Fertile Ground on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Fertile-Ground-Story-Journey-Grief-ebook/dp/B01DCUQR4C

What readers are saying about From Fertile Ground …

Five-star review online in June 2016: “This book is captivating. The author weaves together a thread from his grandfather’s spartan factual daily entries in a diary for approximately fifty years through his mother’s letters to him and family members and then his own experiences, bringing them altogether in a compelling manner. The reader gets to know the three main characters in the end and, at the same time, there are universal lessons and emotions to experience in one’s own life. This reader did not want this book to end.”

Five-star review online in August 2019: “From Fertile Ground is more than just a terrific read. Johnson is generous in taking the reader into his world, his journey, his family, his emotions. In so doing, the reader obtains a soothing sense of identification of the human condition, particularly how we work through grief and loss. Johnson’s mother’s and grandfather’s letters are interspersed throughout the narrative (and connected) which adds to the reassuring sense of a collective history.“