Denis Johnson

For Denis Johnson from London, who invented the bicycle forerunner called "hoy horse", see Denis Johnson (inventor).

Denis Johnson

Born	1949 Munich, Germany of American parents
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	American
Writing period	1983 to present
Genres	Fiction

Influences Leonard Gardner

Influenced Chuck Palahniuk,^[1] Scott Snyder^[2]

Denis Johnson (born 1949 in Munich, West Germany) is an American writer who has written numerous novels, short stories and poems. He was raised in Tokyo, Manila, and Washington. He holds a masters (MFA) degree from the University of Iowa. His work was influenced by the novelist Leonard Gardner. He has received many awards for his work, including a Lannan Fellowship in Fiction in (1993) and a Whiting Writer’s Award (1986). His most famous work is the collection of short stories Jesus' Son. In 2006-2007, he held the Mitte Chair in creative writing at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

[edit] Works

Jesus' Son (collection of short stories) (1992) was adapted for the screen and produced by Evenstar Films, and released by Lions Gate Films in 1999. It was named one of the top ten films of the year by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Roger Ebert and others. The cast included Jack Black, Billy Crudup, Dennis Hopper, Holly Hunter, Denis Leary, Samantha Morton, Will Patton, and featured a cameo by Adewale Ayuba. Johnson himself plays a cameo role in the film as a man who has been stabbed in the eye by his wife. The title Jesus' Son comes from the song "Heroin" by Lou Reed.
"Dirty Wedding" (short story) (1990) published in The New Yorker 1990: The narrator tells how he liked to ride the El trains in Chicago, when he was in his mid-20s and living with a girl named Michelle.

Johnson's plays have been produced in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Seattle. He is the Resident Playwright of Campo Santo, the resident theater company at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco.