My Story
Behind the Words
J. Ivanel Johnson is the pen name for an award-winning author/poet, playwright and composer living with (dis)Ability, who now resides in the Appalachian range of Northwestern New Brunswick, where she and her husband and mother manage near-to- self-sufficiently on their small farm overlooking inspirational views of nature. Like her grandmother before her (the 'Ivanel' of her pen name) she has written her entire life, first publishing two poems with Annick Press in Toronto when she was only 11. She has been a high school English and Drama teacher, working and living in the highlands of Scotland, the moors of Yorkshire, and the Rockies of Montana and the Yukon, before settling in the east of Canada. She has also been a Junior Olympic/Young Riders equestrian coach in 3 countries, and a therapeutic riding instructor, with some of those experiences related in the short creative memoir published as "Iron Bone" in 2019's Nothing Without Us by Renaissance Press, Ottawa. Scroll Below for Photos:
links to interviews, free online reads, contests, etc. may be found at linktr.ee/j.ivanel and a more detailed bio. read at PARC's archived news from March 2023 when Johnson was Playwright of the Month (Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre)
Scroll Below for More Photos:
A Literary Life
J. Ivanel Johnson
from various readings , public speaking events , and living near Haworth, U.K. (Bronte and Plath country)
click on any photo to enlarge and read caption
“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity”