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Writer-in-Residence at Pasadena City College: Toni Ann Johnson (2023)

Research guide dedicated to present and past Writers-in-Residence at Pasadena City College

Writer-in-Residence 2023 Information

Join us on the PCC Campus for the following live events:

TONI ANN JOHNSON is the winner of the 2021 Flannery O’Connor Award for short fiction with her linked collection Light Skin Gone to Waste, released in October 2022. Roxane Gay selected the book for the prize and is its editor. Johnson’s novella Homegoing was a semi-finalist for the William Faulkner Wisdom Award in fiction. It won Accents Publishing’s inaugural novella contest in 2020 and was released in May of 2021. The novel Remedy For a Broken Angel was released in 2014 and earned Johnson a 2015 NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author.

In 1998 Johnson won the Christopher Award and the Humanitas Prize for her screenplay “Ruby Bridges,” the Disney/ABC movie and true story of the young girl who integrated into the New Orleans Public School system. In 2004 Johnson won a second Humanitas Prize for her screenplay “Crown Heights” (Showtime), also a true story. The film examined the relationship between a Hasidic Jewish teen and an African-American teen that came together to form a hip hop group in the wake of the 1991 Crown Heights Riots.

Links - Toni Ann Johnson

Virtual Craft Chat on Fiction with Toni Ann Johnson

Toni Ann Johnson: PCC Writer-in-Residence 2023

Photograph of Toni Ann Johnson accompanied by the following text: TONI ANN JOHNSON won the 2021 Flannery O’Connor Award for her linked story collection Light Skin Gone to Waste, selected for the prize and edited by Roxane Gay. The book was nominated for a 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. Her first novel, Remedy for a Broken Angel was nominated for a 2015 Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author. A novella, Homegoing, was published by Accents Publishing in 2021 after winning the press’s inaugural novella contest. Johnson is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Short fiction has appeared in the Emerson Review, Hunger Mountain, Callaloo Journal, Coachella Review, Fiction Magazine (forthcoming) and many other publications. Her short story “Time Travel” won The Missouri Review’s Miller Audio Prize for prose in 2021. She won the 1998 Christopher Award as well as The Humanitas Prize for her screenplay Ruby Bridges, produced for Disney/ABC, and directed by Euzhan Palcy. Johnson earned a BFA in Drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She’s been a fellow at The Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab, Callaloo Writer’s Workshop (2016), and Hurston/Wright (2021). Johnson has taught screenwriting for The Writer’s Guild Foundation, and at The University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles. Pasadena City College is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. If you desire an accommodation related to your disability, please email Human Resources at hrgeneral@pasadena.edu or call (626) 585-7388. Your request should include a general description of your functional limitation and the type of accommodation you are requesting, and be submitted at least 10 working days before the event to ensure availability. 2023 PASADENA CITY COLLEGE WRITER IN RESIDENCE For more information, please contact Professor Emily Fernandez at efernandez13@pasadena.edu.

About the Writer-in-Residence Program

PCC’s Writer-in-Residence Program aims to enrich the cultural environment of the College and the larger community by bringing to campus for a period of three days a distinguished local writer to interact with students, faculty, staff, and community members.  

Writer-in-Residence events include classroom visits, writing workshops, a faculty luncheon, and a public reading. Writers-in-Residence are interviewed by editors of PCC’s literary magazine Inscape, the interview to be published in the magazine. The residency also offers our visiting writer a wonderful opportunity to promote a recent publication.

The Writer-in-Residence Program is funded by the Pasadena Festival of Women Authors and by PCC's English and Language Studies Division.