A novelist, memoirist, editor, and teacher, Joyce Johnson is an award-winning writer who began publishing in the early 1960s and continues writing today. She is best known for her 1983 memoir that documents the pivotal period of the Beats in New York City between 1945 and 1959:
Minor Characters: A Young Woman’s Coming-of-Age in the Beat Orbit of Jack Kerouac.
Minor Characterswon the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the penultimate chapter of Johnson’s 1989 novel
In the Night Café, “The Children’s Wing”, won the O. Henry Award first prize. With a literary career spanning over five decades and various genres, Johnson is an esteemed writer of the Beat Generation and contemporary women’s literary traditions.
Johnson was born Joyce Alice Glassman to a middle-class family in
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Citation: Petrich, Tatum. "Joyce Johnson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 May 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12887, accessed 21 November 2024.]
