Fred Johnston (writer) facts for kids

Fred Johnston (born in 1951, passed away in 2024) was a talented Irish writer and musician. He wrote poems and novels. He also reviewed books and played music. Fred Johnston started the Western Writers' Centre in Galway. He also helped create the Irish Writers' Co-operative in 1974. In 1986, he founded the Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway.

Fred Johnston's Life

Early Years and Music

Fred Johnston was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He spent his first seven years living in Toronto, Canada. After that, he returned to Belfast.

From 1962 to 1968, he attended St Malachy's College. During these years, he learned to play the guitar and banjo. He loved folk music and played it often. He even performed on TV and released some music. At 16, he released an album of songs called The Flags Are Out for Celtic.

Journalism and Writing Career

After school, Fred moved to Dublin. He worked as a journalist, writing for newspapers like the Evening Press and The Belfast Telegraph. He also worked in public relations.

His short stories were published in the "New Irish Writing" section of the Evening Press. In 1972, he won a special award called the Hennessy Literary Award. This showed he was a promising new writer.

Founding the Irish Writers' Co-operative

In 1974, Fred Johnston teamed up with other writers, Neil Jordan and Peter Sheridan. Together, they started the Irish Writers' Co-operative. This group helped new Irish writers publish their books.

Some of the first books they published were The Ikon Maker by Desmond Hogan in 1976. They also published Tennis Players by Ronan Sheehan in 1977.

Moving to Galway and New Books

Fred moved to Galway in 1978. The next year, 1979, was a big year for his writing. He published his first collection of poems, called Life and Death in the Midlands. He also released a collection of short stories, Picture of a Girl in a Spanish Hat.

From the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, Fred wrote poems and a short story for Cencrastus. This was a magazine from Scotland that featured literature and arts.

Starting the Cúirt Festival

In 1986, Fred Johnston founded the Cúirt International Festival of Literature. This festival became an annual event in Galway. It grew to be one of the biggest literary festivals in Ireland. Fred stopped working with the festival in 1988.

Music and Translations

In the 1990s, Fred formed an Irish traditional folk band called Parson's Hat. The band released two albums: Cutty Wren and The Better Match. Their songs were also included on other music collections.

Fred also worked as a translator. In 2000, he received a special award to translate poems by the French poet Michel Martin. He also translated works by the Senegalese poet Babacar Sall and the Breton poet Colette Wittorski.

In 2004, he was a writer-in-residence at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco. He spent a month there working on his novel The Neon Rose, which was published in 2007. He also wrote new poems and translated some Monégasque poems.

Western Writers' Centre

In 2005, Fred Johnston founded the Western Writers' Centre. In Irish, it's called Ionad Scríbhneoiri Chaitlín Maude. It's named after the poet Caitlín Maude. This center is the only writers' center west of the River Shannon.

The center hosts many events for writers. These include readings, lectures, workshops, and courses. It also helps organize the Gort literary festival.

Fred also released two solo music albums, Get You and Local Papers. He regularly reviewed poetry for magazines like Poetry Ireland Review and Books Ireland. He also wrote for The Irish Times and other literary magazines.

Fred Johnston's Books

Poetry Collections

• Life and Death in the Midlands (1979) OCLC 22526179
• A Scarce Light (1985) ISBN: 978-0946308347
• Song at the Edge of the World (1987) ISBN: 978-0948339127
• Measuring Angles (1993) ISBN: 978-1874700111
• Browne (1993) ISBN: 978-1898472063
• Canzoni con Accompagnamento d'Arpa (Songs for Harp Accompaniment, translated into Italian) (1996) OCLC 35075289
• True North (1998) ISBN: 978-1897648803
• Being Anywhere: New & Selected Poems (2001) ISBN: 978-1873687635
• Paris Without Maps (2003) ISBN: 978-0954231248
• The Oracle Room (2007) ISBN: 978-1905614219

Novels

• Atalanta: A Novel (2000) ISBN: 978-1898256922
• Mapping God = Le Tracé de Dieu (in English and French) (2003) ISBN: 978-0954260798
• The Neon Rose (2007) ISBN: 978-1906061074

Short Story Collections

• Picture of a Girl in a Spanish Hat (1979) OCLC 19678188
• Keeping the Night Watch (1998) ISBN: 978-1898256-58-8
• Dancing in the Asylum (2011) ISBN: 978-1906998448

Plays

• No Earthly Pole

Translations by Fred Johnston

• Northern Lights (poems by Colette Wittorski, from French) (2007) ISBN: 978-1907276064