Carolyn Howard Johnson does it Again

World Wide Web—Judges of the poetry contest sponsored by Franklin-Christoph honored UCLA Extension Writers’ Program instructor Carolyn Howard-Johnson with their first place cash prize on March 17.
Franklin-Christoph is an American company since 1901 and has been making fine writing instruments beautiful enough to inspire poets since 2001. A few years ago they decided to begin supporting the fine arts, in particular poetry writing via a free-to-enter contest, offering $2500 in cash and prizes. They say, “Many of our clients over the years use our products for creative writing of various sorts, so we thought it a natural fit, and a nice extension of our organization beyond commerce.”

The poem selected for the top honor is “Endangered Species.” It was inspired when the poet visited the Long Beach Aquarium. She came to face-to-face with a delicate sea dragon camouflaged in its habitat by the gently wafting kelp in its tank. Howard-Johnson’s poetry has appeared in literary journals like the Mochila Review, Banyan Review, Pear Noir and Front Range. One of her poems won a reader award at The Pedestal Magazine
Howard-Johnson has studied at UCLA with Suzanne Lummis, editor of Speechless the Magazine (http://www.speechlessthemagazine.org/) where her chapbook Tracings, winner of Military Writers Society of America’s Award of Excellence and published by Finishing Line Press, was featured in 2005.
The poet's literary novel, This Is the Place, has won eight awards. Her book of creative nonfiction has won three. She is developing a new Celebration Series of poetry chapbooks with Magdalena Ball. Among them are She Wore Emerald Then: Reflections on Motherhood; Cherished Pulse: Unconventional Love Poetry; and Imagining the Future: Ruminations on Fathers and Other Masculine Apparitions. She also consults and is the author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers (www.howtodoitfrugally.com).

Connie Gotsch www.conniegotsch.com Host Write On Four Corners KSJE FM, Farmington NM www.ksje.com Author two award winning novels Snap Me a Future and A Mouthful of Shell available www.dlsijpress.com Belle’s Star (tween novel age 9-12) Artemesia Publishers apbooks.net