Jill McCabe Johnson

Jill McCabe Johnson received her MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) and her PhD in English from University of Nebraska. Her honors include an Academy of American Poets prize, Louise Van Sickle Fellowship in Poetry and the Deborah Tall Memorial Fellowship from PLU. Her work has appeared in Harpur Palate, Brevity, Los Angeles Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her poetry collection, “Diary of the One Swelling Sea” (MoonPath, 2013) received a Nautilus Book Award in Poetry. Jill is editor of the University of Nebraska Gender Programs series, including “Becoming: What Makes a Woman” (2012) and “Being: What Makes a Man” (2015).

Jill received 2015 GAP funding for her project “Douglas Fir Heart Rot”, a research and visual arts practice to inform poems about the Douglas fir ecosystem during the end-stages of its 1,000-year lifecycle. Funds will enable research and funding for the purchase of books and art supplies. The resultant visual artifacts will serve as continuing inspiration and reference in the creation of poems for a full-length manuscript.