Anna Johnson

About

Anna Johnson (she/her) lives and works in East London and, alongside teaching, is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at Kingston University.

Johnson's life-writing practice focuses on motherhood experience, in particular a recurring connection between her experience of motherhood and ideas of haunting, of presence and absence and repetition (daily and generational).

She is interested in theories of the spectral, intersectionality, queerness, feminism, disability, failure and anecdote, amongst others, and in how we might aspire to transform and re-possess language in an attempt to express the ineffable. Her work is also reflective of a complex intersectionality that Johnson sees as fundamental to life-writing. As such, it encompasses issues including neurodiversity and chronic illness.

Academic responsibilities

Lecturer

Qualifications

  • PhD Creative Writing (underway)
  • MA Fine Art
  • BA (Hons) First Class, History and Theory of Art

Teaching and learning

Anna is currently teaching on MA Creative Writing and MA English Literature modules

Postgraduate courses taught

Research

Recent publications/events:

2022: Failure: the Ghost and the Mother, Alluvium Journal, Special Edition 10.1 

2021: Failure: the Ghost and the Mother, talk at BACLS-WHN 2021 Virtual Conference

2021: An Intersection of Motherhood and Chronic Illness, chapter in From Band-Aids to Scalpels: Motherhood Experiences in/of Medicine, Demeter Press

2021: Cascading Transitions: Becoming a Writer and Engaging with Neurodiversity in Response to Motherhood, chapter in Women in Transition: Crossing Boundaries, Crossing Borders, Routledge

2021: Race/Gender Matters Research Group Event: ‘Failure and Care' with Lisa Baraitser, Kingston

2020: I so wanted to ask you… video piece, Writers' Centre Kingston

2019: Illness/Parenting/Writing, performance, Writers' Centre Kingston

2019: The Role of ‘Place' in My Creative Life-Writing Practice, talk, Genos/Matter/Theory Conference, Kingston

2018: Cascading Transitions: Becoming a Writer and Engaging with Neurodiversity in Response to Motherhood, talk, Women in Transition Conference, Kings and Oxford

2018: Objects of a Maternal Haunting, chapter in Everyday World-Making: Towards an Understanding of Affect and Mothering, Demeter Press

Areas of specialism

  • maternal studies
  • feminist studies
  • life writing
  • neurodiversity

Social media

Academia