Alan Soldofsky directs the MFA Creative Writing Program at San Jose State University. His most recent collection of poems is <a href="https://tsup.truman.edu/product/in-the-buddha-factory/">In the Buddha Factory</a> (Truman State University Press, 2013). With David Koehn, he is coeditor of <a href="https://www.omnidawn.com/product/compendium-a-collection-of-thoughts-on-prosody/">Compendium: A Collection of Thoughts About Prosody</a>, by Donald Justice (Omnidawn, 2017). His poetry has four times been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His latest collection of poems Charts (For the End of Days) is a finalist for the 2020 Elixir Press Antivenom Poetry Prize. He has also published&nbsp;Kenora Station&nbsp;and&nbsp;Staying Home, both originally published as limited-edition artist's books by Steam Press of Berkeley, intaglio prints by Lyman Piersma, book design by Alistair Johnston. A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he joined the San Jose State faculty in 1985 and directed first the <a href="http://www.pcsj.org/">San Jose Poetry Center</a>, then the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.litart.org/">SJSU Center for Literary Arts</a>, before being appointed director of the university’s Creative Writing Program.

Alan Soldofsky

Ted Geltner is in the midst of writing a Denis Johnson biography. His previous books include Blood, Bone, and Marrow: A Biography of Harry Crews. He is an associate professor at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia, where he teaches reporting, literary journalism, magazine journalism, and photojournalism.&nbsp;

Ted Geltner

Doug Unger is the author of four novels, including&nbsp;Leaving the Land, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and a short-fiction collection,&nbsp;Looking for War and Other Stories. He serves on the executive boards of <a href="http://wordswithoutborders.org/">Words Without Borders</a> and other arts organizations, and is co-founder of the Creative Writing International program at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he teaches.

Doug Unger

James L. Magnuson has published nine well-received novels, including Famous Writers I Have Known. He has won awards while writing for the movies and for television, and so many of his plays have been produced that he has lost count.&nbsp;He has recently retired as director of the James A. Michener Center for Writers at The University of Texas at Austin.

James L. Magnuson

<div class="x_gmail_default">Lee Montgomery is the author of&nbsp;The Things Between Us,&nbsp;Whose World Is This?, and&nbsp;Searching for Emily: Illustrated.&nbsp;The Things Between Us&nbsp;received the 2007 Oregon Book Award and was a four-star critic’s choice for&nbsp;People&nbsp;magazine.&nbsp;Whose World Is This?&nbsp;received&nbsp;the 2007 John Simmons Iowa Short Fiction Award and was&nbsp;a finalist&nbsp;for the 2008 Ken Kesey Award in Fiction.&nbsp; Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications including most recently The&nbsp;New York Times Magazine, Oprah, Story, Glimmer Train,&nbsp;Antioch Review, Iowa Review,&nbsp;and&nbsp;Tin House, among others.&nbsp;</div>

Lee Montgomery

John Freeman is the editor of The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, which includes Denis Johnson’s “Emergency.”

John Freeman

Sean San José is a San Francisco Bay Area theater maker, performer, and director. Over the years, he has directed new works by Luis Alfaro, Jessica Hagedorn, Octavio Solis, and many more. He is a co-founder and the current program director of the new performances group Campo Santo, for whom he produced and directed 10 of Denis Johnson’s plays. He was recently appointed the new artistic director of San Francisco’s Magic Theater.

Sean San José

Tobias Wolff is the author of the novels&nbsp;The Barracks Thief&nbsp;and&nbsp;Old School,&nbsp;the memoirs&nbsp;This Boy’s Life&nbsp;and&nbsp;In Pharaoh’s Army,&nbsp;and the short-story collections&nbsp;In the Garden of the North American Martyrs,&nbsp;Back in the World, and&nbsp;The Night in Question. He included Denis Johnson’s story “Emergency” in The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories.

Tobias Wolff

For DJ: Remembering Denis Johnson

"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't." — Mark Twain

Fiction

"The older one grows, the more one likes indecency." — Virginia Woolf

Memoir &amp; Essay

Lee Montgomery is the author of&nbsp;The Things Between Us,&nbsp;Whose World Is This?, and&nbsp;Searching for Emily: Illustrated.&nbsp;The Things Between Us&nbsp;received the 2007 Oregon Book Award and was a four-star critic’s choice for&nbsp;People&nbsp;magazine.&nbsp;Whose World Is This?&nbsp;received&nbsp;the 2007 John Simmons Iowa Short Fiction Award and was&nbsp;a finalist&nbsp;for the 2008 Ken Kesey Award in Fiction.&nbsp; Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications including most recently The&nbsp;New York Times Magazine, Oprah, Story, Glimmer Train,&nbsp;Antioch Review, Iowa Review,&nbsp;and&nbsp;Tin House, among others.&nbsp;

Lee Montgomery

Articles

For DJ: Remembering Denis Johnson