PUBLICATIONS
Jeffrey N. Johnson's collected short stories, Other Fine Gifts, was awarded an Ippy Award Silver Medal for Best Regional Fiction: Mid-Atlantic. His debut novel, The Hunger Artist, was a finalist for the Library of Virginia's People's Choice Award in Fiction, and one of his short stories was awarded the Andrew Lytle Fiction Prize by The Sewanee Review. His play, Affair at the Hotel Opal, was staged at the Potomac Playmaker's fourth annual One-Act Play Festival. He is a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), and a recipient of a “Creative Fellow” grant from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. HIs first film, a video poem "One Old, One Young," first published in War Literature and the Arts, has appeared in numerous film festivals both in the Uniited States and abroad. HIs second short film, Lessons, was accepted to the Los Angeles International Children's Film Festival and the KIDS FIRST! Film Festival in Santa Fe, NM. He was raised in Clifton, Virginia and earned a Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Tech. He currently lives in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and twins, and is working on a second novel and his third short film.
Essays:
Lake Effect - 2024, Vol 28 - "Mornings at the Medici Fountain"
The Story Garden - Oct. 2005, Vol 6 - "Cambodia Rising"
Fiction:
Cream City Review - 2024, Vol. 48.1 - "Word Search"
North Atlantic Review - 2017, Number - "With These Hands, We Inter"
Wisconsin Review - Winter 2015, Vol 48.1 - "Tell You of My Dreaming"
REAL: Regarding Arts and Letters - Spr/Sum 2012, Vol 36.1 - "With These Hands We Inter"
Lake Effect - 2012, Vol 16 - "The Transfiguration of Mauricio"
Redux - #20, February 2012 - "Other Fine Gifts
The Sewanee Review - Fall 2011, Vol. CXIX, Number 4 - "Lost Among the Hedgerows" (Andrew Lytle Fiction Prize)
Clackamas Literary Review - 2011, Vol. XV - "The Want of Molly"
North Atlantic Review - 2011, Number 22 - "Legs of the Lame"
Night Train Magazine - 2010 - "Fresh Eggs"
The Evansville Review - 2007, Vol. XVII - "Other Fine Gifts"
The Summerset Review - 2007, Vol. 1 - "Raw Toscana"
The Distillery - 2007, Vol XIV - Modern Predators"
The Connecticut Review - Fall 2006, Vol. XXVIII, Number 2 - "The Waters of Casablanca"
Licking River Review - 2005-2006, Vol. 36 - "Extra-Perceptuals"
South Dakota Review - Fall 2003, Vol 41, Number 3 - "Reappraising Jason"
Aethlon, The Journal of Sport Literature - Spring 2003, Vol. XX:2 - Skating the Blumlisalp."
Potomac Review - Fall 2002/Winter 2003, Issue 34 - "Filling a Hole"
Dead Mule - January 2002 - "Plowman's Burden"
The Story Garden - Fall 2000, Issue 1 - "A War Story"
Poetry:
What This House Knows (anthology) - Terrapin Books - 2025 - "Nine Month Lease"
Live Nude Poems - 2023 - "Tramposo de Sevilla"
Gargoyle Magazine - 2023 - Online #4 - "Mediate, Meditate"
The Southern Poetry Anthology: Virginia - Texas Review Press - Fall 2022 - "Particle Search in D minor"
The Southern Poetry Anthology: Virginia - Texas Review Press - Fall 2022 - "Things Boys Bury"
The Midwest Quarterly - (pending Summer 2022) - "Recovery"
Clackamas Literary Review - 2022, Vol. 26 - "How Sound Travels"
Santa Clara Review - Winter 2022, Vol. 109, Issue 01 - "Ashen Memory"
War, Literature and the Arts - 2020 - "One Old, One Young"
The Northern Virginia Review - 2020 - "On a Sunny Morning With Clear Visibility"
Gargoyle Magazine - Summer 2020 - "A Necessary Weakness"
Gargoyle Magazine - Summer 2020 - "Letter to a Dead Girl"
The Carolina Quarterly - Feb. 2018 - "Contemplating Nonexistence"
Gargoyle Magazine - 2018, Vol. 68 - "The Immigrant"
Steel Toe Review - Summer 2017 - "Last Ride"
Steel Toe Review - Summer 2017 - "A Jazz Moment"
Birmingham Poetry Review - Spring 2017, Issue 44 - "Particle Search in D minor"
Plainsongs - Winter 2017, Vol. XXXII.2 - "Plow in the Pokeweed"
Oxford Magazine - Spring 2016, Issue 37 - "Things Boys Bury"
Dos Passos Review - June 2014 - Waiting in the Lab"
Dos Passos Review - June 2014 - "Gods of Fertility"
Red Rock Review - Fall 2013, Issue 32 - "A Waning Proposal"
Roanoke Review - Spring 2013, Vol. XXXVIII - "Body Litter"
Coe Review - Fall 2012, Vol 43, Issue 1 - "Things We Have Seen Before"
Gargoyle Magazine - 2010, Vol. 56 - "Nine Month Lease"
South Carolina Review - Spring 2009, Vol. 41, Number 2 - "Toddler Angst"
ABOUT "the hunger artist"
High school art teacher Carl Rittenhaur is in line to inherit the family farm, but his guilt over the deaths of his parents burdens him from claiming his legacy. His life gets a jolt when his ex-fiancé, who had once pulled him from depression and later abandoned him at the altar, returns to town with her two-year-old daughter in tow. She is in the last throes of a custody battle with the girl’s father, and Carl has been mysteriously named in the hearings. Tangled in an old romance and a corrupt family court system, Carl must find where his true hunger lies, either for his birthright and all its memories, or for this new family that may be his salvation.
Biography
CONTACT
jnjarch1 (at) gmail (you know the rest)
Caught in a chaotic spiral of loss and memory, the characters in Other Fine Gifts often seek solace in their origin. From a man who has lost his home to foreclosure, to another confronting his xenophobia, to a boy in search of God in the stones of Rome, each is in need of enlightenment and redemption. Despite their limited visions and tragic losses, their struggle for memory never impedes their sense of hope.
Ippy Award Silver Medal Winner
Best Regional Fiction, Mid-Atlantic
Independent Publisher Book Awards
People's Choice Award Finalist
Library of Virginia
AWARDS/FELLOWSHIPS/HONORS/STAGE
Virginia Poets Database - Old Dominion University
2025 - Terrapin Books - What This House Knows (anthology) - 1 poem
2022 - The Texas Review Press - The Southern Poetry Anthology: Virginia - 2 poems
2019 Potomac Playmakers One-Act Play Festival - "Affair at the Hotel Opal"
2018 IP Award Silver Medal (Ippy Award) - Best Regional Fiction: Mid-Atlantic - "Other Fine Gifts, stories"
2015 People's Choice Award Finalist - Library of Virginia - "The Hunger Artist, a novel"
2011 Andrew Lytle Fiction Prize - The Sewanee Review - "Lost Among the Hedgerows"
2006 Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation - "Creative Fellow" Grant
2006 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) - Fellowship
OTHER FINE GIFTS
A dynamic collection of stories from the winner of the 2011 Andrew Lytle Fiction Prize.