Johnnie Bernhard

A former teacher and journalist, Johnnie Bernhard’s passion is reading and writing. Her work(s) have appeared in anthologies and in national and international publications, including Southern Literary Review, Houston Style Magazine, The Mississippi Press, the international Word Among Us, and the Cowbird-NPR production on small town America. Her first novel, A Good Girl, is a 2017 finalist in the national Kindle Book Awards, a Pen/Bingham nominee, and shortlisted for the 2015 Wisdom-Faulkner international Writing Competition. In 2018, A Good Girl was nominated by the Institute of Mississippi Arts and Letters for Fiction of the Year and accepted into the Texas Center for the Book permanent collection. Her second novel, How We Came to Be, was released in 2018. It has received stellar reviews, including being named a "Must Read" by Southern Writers Magazine and listed as a 2018 Summer Reading List choice by Deep South Magazine. It was awarded the Summerall Book Prize by Lamar University in 2019. Johnnie's third novel, Sister of the Undertow, was named a book of the month by the international book club, The Pulpwood Queens. It was chosen as Best of the University Presses, 100 Books by Literary Hub and the Association of University Presses. It received First Place in the Press Women of Texas Communications Contest. Her fourth novel, Hannah and Ariela launches nationally on August 1, 2022. Johnnie was chosen as a selected speaker in the 2020 TEDx Fearless Women Series. She also supports young writers in public schools through the Letters About Literature program with the Texas Center for the Book and with the Write for Mississippi program. In 2021, she was named a teaching artist with Gemini Ink Writing Arts Center of San Antonio and the national TAP Summer Institute 2021. Johnnie enjoys teaching workshops for writing communities across the country. Johnnie shares her time between Texas and Mississippi with her husband and rescue dog, Sadie. For more about Johnnie Bernhard, please visit the author's web site at www.johnniebernhardauthor.com