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Nancy Johnson

Biography

Nancy Johnson

A native of Chicago’s south side, Nancy Johnson is Senior Manager of Brand Communications and Writing for the College of American Pathologists, the world's largest association of board-certified pathologists. For more than a decade, she worked as an Emmy-nominated, award-winning television journalist at CBS and ABC affiliates in markets nationwide from Tampa Bay, FL, to Madison, WI. Her work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine and has been supported by Tin House, Kimbilio Fiction, and the Hurston-Wright Foundation. She blogs regularly for Writer Unboxed and leads panel discussions on writing and publishing. A graduate of Northwestern University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Nancy lives in downtown Chicago. THE KINDEST LIE is her first book.

Books by Nancy Johnson

People of Means
by Nancy Johnson - Fiction, Women's Fiction

In 1959, Freda Gilroy arrives at Fisk University full of hope. Soon, the ugliness of the Jim Crow South intrudes, and she’s thrust into a movement for social change. Freda is torn between a soon-to-be doctor her parents approve of and an audacious young man willing to risk it all for justice. Freda finds herself caught between two worlds and must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the advancement of her people. In 1992 Chicago, Freda’s daughter Tulip is an ambitious PR professional on track for an exciting career. But with the ruling in the Rodney King trial weighing heavily on her, Tulip feels called to action. When she makes an irreversible misstep as she seeks to uplift her community, she must decide, just like her mother three decades prior, what she’s willing to risk in the name of justice and equality.

The Kindest Lie
by Nancy Johnson - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy League-educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but she's uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to --- and was forced to leave behind --- when she was a teenager. Returning home, Ruth discovers that the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a traumatic incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives.