Life
1951- ; b. Belfast; ed., St. Thomas Aquinas, Toronto, Canada; St. Joseph’s,
Belfast; St. Malachy’s College, Belfast, where he was taught by Des
Wilson; worked in several years in public relations; journalist on Evening Press, Belfast Telegraph,
and other papers, 1968-78; winner of Hennessy Literary Award, 1972; with Peter Sheridan and Neil Jordan, co-founded, Irish Writers’ Co-operative; settled in Galway in
c.1986, and helped fnd. Cúirt Literature Festival there; reviews for Southern
Humanities Review, The Irish Times, and Harpers’ &
Queens; estab. The Western Writers, Centre - Ionad Scríbhneoirí Chaitlín Maude - in Galway; poetry reviewer for Poetry Ireland and later poetry-reviewer for Books Ireland; ; contrib. to Orbis,
New Letters, The Southern Review, and The Seneca Review;
issued Songs for Harp Accompaniment (1996), poems; issued True North (Dedalus 1997); a collection, Middle (1997),
was planned with Salmon for in 1997; Keeping the Nght Watch (1999),
stories; issued Atalanta: A Novel (Collins Press 2000); lectures
at Hewitt Summer School, 2003; frequent poetry reviews in Books Ireland; issued Keeping the Night Watch (q.d.); No Earthly Pole (Punchbag Th., Galway Arts Fest. [1998]) recipient of NI Arts Council and Irish Arts Council bursaries; winner of Prix de l’Ambassade, 2000 to translate Michel Martin; also trans. the Senegalese poet Babacar Sall; has served on the Executive of the Irish Writers’ Union; issued Mapping God (2003), a novel that departs from the discovery of a young girl’s body on the Irish sea-board; recipient of the Ireland Fund of Monaco Literary Bursary at the Princess Grace Irish Library, Sept.-Oct. 2004.
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Works
Poetry, Life and Death in The
Midlands ([Dublin:] Tansy Books 1979), 50pp.; A Scarce Light (Beaver
Row Press 1985); Song At The Edge of The World (Salmon Publishing
1987; Measuring Angles (Cló Iar-Chonnachta 1993) [book & cassette]; Browne [rev. edn.] (Belfast: Lapwing Publ. 1993), 25pp.; True
North (Keneven: Salmon Publ. 1997), 85pp.;
Being Anywhere: New & Selected Poems (Belfast: Lagan Press, 2001),
xvi, 92pp.; Measuring Angles [The Artist’s Voice Series] (Cló Iar-Chonnachta 1993), 79pp. [with cassette]; Paris Without Maps (Dingwall: Sandstone Press for Northwords 2003), 28pp.
Fiction, Picture of a Girl in a Spanish Hat ([Dublin:] Tansy Books 1979), stories; Keeping the Night Watch ([London:] Collins Press 1998), 172pp.; Atalanta: A Novel (Collins Press 2000), 216pp.; Mapping God/Le Tracé de Dieu (Wynkin de worde 2003), 262pp. [bilingual on facing pages].
Miscellaneous: Poetry Ireland Review, 42 (1994), p.81, ["Shooting Magpies"]; Honest Ulsterman, 98 (1994), p.35-36 [“Shop Street, Winter Morning”, “Bogeymen”]; Irish Studies Review (Summer 1994), p.18 [“Pizza”, “Ballyvaughan”, “Night Driving”]; “Dancing in the Asylum”, poem in Times Literary Supplement, 25 Sept. 1998, p.7; “The Old Colonials, i.m. Frederick Harvey Johnston”, in Irish Studies Review (Autumn 1996), p.23 [full page].
Reviews, Numerous reviews in Books Ireland incl. ‘Poetry, Poets and the Power of healing’, contrib. to "Poetry Now" column of Irish Times, 7, Nov. 1998; ‘Guid as Gold, feature review of Patricia Craig, The Belfast Anthology (Belfast: Blackstaff 1999), in Books Ireland (March 2000), p.61 [infra]; Fred Johnston, review of Paul Durcan, Cries of an Irish Caveman: New Poems (2001), in Books Ireland, Feb. 2002); review of Sruth Teangacha/Stream of Tongues, in Books Ireland (Oct. 2002), p.247 [infra].
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Commentary
Derek Hand, reviewing Atalanta (Collins Press), in The Irish
Times (4 Nov. 2000)..
Maurice Harmon, review of Mapping God, in Books Ireland (Nov. 2003).
Irish Emigrant, review of Mapping God (2003), in IE, “Book of the Week”, 31 Oct. 2004).
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Notes
Books in Print (1994), Life and Death in The Midlands (Tansy Books
1979); A Scarce Light (Beaver Row Press 1985) [0 94630 835 7]; Song At
The Edge of The World (Galway: Salmon Publishing 1988) [0 948339 12 8];
Measuring Angles (Galway: Cló Iar-Chonnachta 1993) [1 874700 11
7]; Browne (Belfast: Lapwing Publ. 1993) [1 898472 06 8].
Fred Johnston, ‘Guid as Gold’,
review of Patricia Craig, The Belfast Anthology (Blackstaff 2000),
in Books Ireland, March 2000, pp.61-62; incls. account of his own
purchase of a first typewriter for seven quid’ at P. J. Kavanagh’s
I Buy Anything store.
Fred Johnston is a favourite poet of Jack Taylor, the ex-Garda hero of Ken Bruen’s detective novels. (Books Ireland, Summer 2004, p.161.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)