Nancy Johnson

Nancy Johnson, one of the smartest, strongest, most beautiful women in the world (why mince words?), died on January 21 from ovarian cancer. She was 63, but anyone who saw her could not believe it. A great writer and award-winning poet, she loved ideas, words, art, coffee, cooking, music (particularly Leonard Cohen's), dancing, children, animals (including her late dog Vinnie) , looking at the stars (one is named after her), and her close friends and family – especially her son Wally, her husband Arthur, and their dog Mango. Nancy was stylish, feisty, independent, competitive, fun, joyous, angry, classy, combative, and complicated. She thought it was important to learn the rules so you knew when to break them. She had an incredible smile, bright shining eyes, and a great laugh/cackle. She was tough as nails and would not be pushed around. And she had a wonderful quirky, visual sense of humor, exemplified by this cartoon, which she asked Arthur to share with Wally last year:

A memorial celebration of Nancy's life will be held on Saturday, February 4, 2012, from 11 am to 3 pm at the Montclair Women's Cultural Arts Club in Oakland, CA. For details about the celebration, click the link above. For three pictures of Nancy, visit the Photo Gallery. For many more photos, click here. For charitable gifts in Nancy's memory, click on the Charities link or see the last paragraph below. And please sign the Guestbook if you wish. A hard copy of the Guestbook can be created for Nancy's family. Nancy was born and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. A tomboy, she read voraciously and was forced to sit in the first seat in the front row at school because she got the best grades. She did not like the attention or the resentment. When one boy wouldn't leave her alone, she hit him with her lunchbox and broke his nose. She learned piano, took ballet lessons, and was a diver on the swimming team. After reading Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov, she decided to study Russian so she could read such beautiful works in the language in which they were written. Nancy graduated from Randolph-Macon College in 1970 with a major in Russian Studies. While there, she competed on the school's synchronized swimming team. In the 1970s and early 1980s, she worked as a nanny to the children of an American diplomat at the embassy in Moscow; an announcer for a York, Pennsylvania, radio station; a reporter and anchor for several Pennsylvania television stations; and a copywriter for an advertising agency. Nancy's true passion, however, was for writing poetry. So, in 1986, she quit her well-paid job and enrolled in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. She received her Master of Arts degree in 1987 and then her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Arizona. While in Arizona, she taught high school and college English in Tucson and began submitting her fierce, beautiful poems for publication. They were published in the Carolina Quarterly, Antioch Review, Massachusetts Review, Antietam Review, and numerous other journals, winning several grants and awards. In 1991, Nancy moved to Washington, D.C., to marry Arthur Bryant, Executive Director of the public interest law firm Public Justice. Nancy and Arthur loved being together and had lives that were warm and rewarding in many ways, close to family and friends. Nancy taught English and creative writing at Mount Vernon College, Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, Hood College, and Mount Vernon College. Their son Wally was born in 1994 and, the following year, Nancy's poems were collected in the book Zoo & Cathedral, winner of the first White Pine Press Poetry Prize. But Nancy hated living in DC and yearned for the West. So, in 1999, Public Justice opened a West Coast Office and the family moved to Oakland, California, where Wally attended Mills College Children's School and Nancy taught poetry to elementary school children. In August 2002, the family was driving home from a trip to Oregon when their car was struck head-on by another vehicle. All three were seriously injured, and Arthur, who was driving, was not expected to survive. For the next few years, Nancy tended to her family with a tenacity and devotion that surprised no one who knew her. Over time, she began to write a memoir about the accident and its effects, and this became the focus of her work life. She was an important part of the Bay Area literary community and enriched the lives and work of many writers. Nancy was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2003 and underwent many treatments over the next eight years, which she endured with her characteristic humor, strength, and no-nonsense attitude. Throughout her illness, she remained an avid hiker, an insatiable reader, an involved friend, an intrepid and gifted cook, and a deeply committed mother and wife. All the while, she worked on her memoir. Her essay about writing it, "Writing Toward the Center," was published in Dedicated to the People of Darfur: Writings on Risk, Hope, and Fear by Rutgers Press in 2009. Nancy was completing her memoir at the time of her final hospitalization in November 2011. Arthur and Wally moved Nancy home on January 3, and she spent her remaining days in the company of her beloved art collection, her library of books ranging from Russian novels to biographies to volumes of poetry, dozens of photographs of people she cared about, and, most importantly, her friends and family. She is survived by Arthur, Wally, and Mango – and many extended family members. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Nancy's honor to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, www.cff.org (Wally has CF); the Public Justice Foundation, http://www.publicjustice.net/Special-Gifts.aspx (which Arthur runs); and/or the LiveStrong ride against cancer , which three of Nancy's family members have dedicated to her as a team named the "The Tucson Black Coffee Cacklers."