Josephine Johnson

Josephine Johnson was an American novelist and poet born, raised and educated in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1935, at the age of 24, she won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her first novel, Now In November. She continued to write throughout her life and several of her short stories won the O. Henry Award.

In 1942, she married Grant G. Cannon, editor in chief of the Farm Quarterly, with whom she had three children. Johnson, raised on a farm, always preferred a rural environment over city life and in addition to her writing was a devoted housewife and mother; Johnson used land and farm living as a setting for many of her stories.

Photo credit: The Johnson Estate.