Josephine Winslow Johnson

Josephine W. Johnson (1910-1990) was the author of eleven books of fiction, poetry, and essays. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1935 at age 24 for her first novel, Now in November and shortly after, published Winter Orchard, a collection of short stories that had previously appeared in The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, The St. Louis Review, and Hound & Horn. Of these stories, "Dark" won an O. Henry Award in 1934, and "John the Six" won an O. Henry Award third prize the following year. Johnson continued to write short stories and won three more O. Henry Awards for "Alexander to the Park" (1942), "The Glass Pigeon" (1943), and "Night Flight" (1944). In 1942, she married Grant G. Cannon, editor in chief of the Farm Quarterly. The couple moved to Iowa City, where she taught at the University of Iowa for three years, before then moving to Hamilton County, Ohio. Johnson stayed in the Cincinnati area until her death from pneumonia.