“Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee: River Stories” by Gordon Johnston

In Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee: River Stories, Gordon Johnston has created a powerful collection that reflects the challenges, complexities, and desires of twenty-first-century life in the changing American South. Gordon Johnston, a Professor of Creative Writing at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, knows this landscape well. Johnston, a Georgia native, was previously artist-in-residence at […]

“Scaring the Bears” by Gordon Johnston

Reviewed by Steven Croft As Gordon Johnston’s fellow Georgia writer Tony Grooms has said, “Writers are, by occupation, collectors—not just of books—but observations and experiences.”  Scaring the Bears: Poems (Mercer University Press, 2021) is a “middle-of-the-journey” consideration by a fifty-something speaker of an entire life: where he has been and where he believes he is going. The […]