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When I was offered the chance
to introduce Fenton Johnson

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tonight, I was quite flattered.

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But I soon found
myself with a problem.

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An introduction is
a story of a kind,

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and the more I thought about
this and weighed the evidence,

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the clearer it was to
me that it's actually

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Fenton himself who is the
100% consummate storyteller

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around here.

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Fenton is made of stories.

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He tells stories,
and craves stories,

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and finds stories as
surely as we sit here today

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under a waning April moon.

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His own history is
such a tale, the facts

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beguiling but his capacity
to weave them together

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even more so.

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Top this for evocative
literary beginnings.

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I was born John Fenton Johnson
in Kentucky Hill Country,

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ninth of nine children
of a Catholic father

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and a Protestant mother
who, searching for romance,

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converted to Catholicism.

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I grew up a cruise mile from
the Abbey of Gethsemani,

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some of whose monks crept
from the monastery enclosure

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to drink beer and
smoke cigarettes

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and eat my mother's
cooking and dance with her

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by the light of the moon.

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I am named after two of
those monks, the best

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cook and the best dancer.

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For as far back as
anyone cares to remember,

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my father's family made
whiskey and told stories.

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Not too shabby for a
writer's origin story.

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Can you top it?

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Not me.

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I can and will tell you that
this son of the South and son

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of storytellers
has, in the decades

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since this provocative
start, forged his reputation

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by writing works of
profound and lasting value,

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plunging headlong into the
metaphorical depths hinted

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at in these early
experiences, including

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the gravitational pull
of family and community

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and in beautiful
and disparate ways,

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the interconnection between
the spirit and body.

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We meet tonight on an auspicious
occasion, a triumphant turn

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in any writer's career.

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Fenton's excellent new novel,
The Man Who Loved Birds,

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has just been published by the
University of Kentucky Press.

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Underscoring the
significance of this work

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as well as the
achievements of a lifetime,

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The Man Who Loved Birds
was released simultaneously

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with reissues of Fenton's
two previous novels, Crossing

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The River, his first,
published in 1989

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and out of print for
many years called

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"as rich and southern
as fried chicken gravy"

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by the Chicago Tribune.

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And Scissors, Paper, Rock.

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First published in 1993, a
classic of Southern and LGBT

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literature, winner of
the Lambda Literary Award

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and the Bay Area Book Review's
award for best fiction.

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Both of these books
include forewords

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by leading American writers,
homages to the works

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and acknowledgment of
their enduring value.

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Fenton is also the
author of Geography

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of the Heart, a memoir which
received the American Library

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Association and Lambda Literary
Awards for best gay nonfiction.

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And Keeping Faith:
A Skeptic's Journey

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Among Christian and Buddhist
Monks, this one an inquiry

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into what it means to be a
skeptic and to keep faith.

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Keeping Faith also received a
Lambda Literary Award, as well

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as a Kentucky Literary Award
for creative nonfiction

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and outstanding
literary achievement.

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A collection of new and
selected non-fiction,

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Everywhere Home, an
autobiography in essays,

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was selected by Sarabande
Books in its prestigious Linda

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Bruckheimer Kentucky
Literature Series

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and will come out next year.

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Finally, in this
banner season, Norton

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will publish Going it Alone,
the dignity and challenge

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of solitude, a book-length
meditation on solitaries

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and solitude, in 2018.

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This project emerged
from a cover essay

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Fenton wrote on the same
subject for Harper's that

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came out last year.

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Fenton's essays and
literary journalism

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on issues involving
social justice, faith

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and spirituality,
environmentalism,

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and human rights have appeared
in a wide range of newspapers

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and magazines, including,
besides Harper's, the New York

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Times and the Los Angeles Times.

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He's received fellowships
from the Guggenheim Foundation

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and the National Endowment
for the Arts, among others,

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and he's also had an active
career writing narration

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for independent media,
including radio, documentaries,

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and personal films.

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Phew.

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But finally, Fenton is
my beloved colleague

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here at the
University of Arizona.

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We've taught alongside each
other now for over 15 years.

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It is therefore my pleasure and
honor to introduce him today

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and to share with you my
admiration for a writer who

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thinks, feels, and
imagines powerful stories

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into this world.

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[APPLAUSE]