A Room of Her Own Foundation's fifth $50,000 Gift of Freedom is awarded to Barb Johnson, a carpenter-turned-writer from New Orleans, Louisiana.First awarded in 2002, A Room of Her Own's $50,000 Gift of Freedom stands alone in the world of grants and awards as a monument to women's dedication to their art. While the award serves the practical purpose of funding one woman's creative project over two years, it also fuels each recipient's directed passion for a creative life, sustaining the momentum that focus has created. Barb Johnson, a New Orleans carpenter-turned-writer, is one of five women to have been given the award.
According to AROHO's founder, Darlene Chandler Bassett, it was Johnson's profound commitment to become a writer after twenty years as a carpenter, and "her astounding degree of readiness at this moment in her evolution" which made her the standout choice to receive the 2009 Gift of Freedom award. "When our objective and someone's willingness come together, it's powerful," Bassett says. While she agrees that the Gift of Freedom "must be about accomplishment, not effort," it is more importantly, "a celebration of the success that comes when an artist releases all doubt about her creative role in the world."
In 2004, at the age of forty-seven, Johnson made the decision to enter the MFA program at The University of New Orleans. "The very first practical step I took in the pursuit of my writing," she says, "was to put down the hammer and pick up a laptop. The only way to quit being a carpenter is to quit dressing like one and carrying woodworking tools."
Soon after entering the writing program, though, Hurricane Katrina hit, wiping out Johnson's carpentry business and livelihood. For a while after that, despite the catastrophic interruption, she lived on her apartment's balcony in the evacuated city and continued to write. While in school, Johnson's stories garnered a number of awards, and by the time she graduated in May 2008, she'd signed a book contract. Her collection of award-winning stories, More of This World or Maybe Another, is a group of closely-linked tales in which the lives of four very different characters intersect in a neighborhood Laundromat. The book will be released by Harper Collins in November 2009.
In her compelling Gift of Freedom application, a unique and intensive process that asks women to consider their relationship to their work, Johnson reflects on the "why" of writing: "We write to say, You are not alone. We write the thing that can't be said…the thing that will be a bright moment for a stranger, the way another's writing was a bright moment for us. …We pass what we have to those who are hungry for it because we, ourselves, have been hungry."
As the Gift of Freedom's fifth recipient, Barb Johnson continues her rise in the literary world. She will benefit from her two years working under the grant to complete a novel entitled St. Luis of Palmyra, which picks up where her short story collection leaves off. Previously, AROHO's $50,000 Gift of Freedom Award has funded the production of poet Jennifer Tseng's Dark Logic; sculptor Jeannine Harkleroad's kinetic installation art; Meredith Hall's New York Times bestselling memoir, Without a Map; and Summer Wood's newly completed novel, Wrecker.
A Room of Her Own (AROHO), is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formed in 2000 to support and advance the work of women in the literary and artistic marketplace. It has expended more than $600,000 on behalf of creative women through its Gift of Freedom Awards, Orlando Prizes, To the Lighthouse Poetry Publication Prize, scholarships, retreats, public readings, Day Conferences, Book Club, and web-based resource center.
Website: http://www.aroomofherownfoundation.org/
