Toni Ann Johnson
Toni Ann Johnson is the winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for short fiction for Light Skin Gone to Waste, which was selected and edited by Roxane Gay. The book was also shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize and nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. Johnson’s novella Homegoing was a semifinalist for the William Faulkner Wisdom Award in fiction and won Accents Publishing’s inaugural novella contest. Her novel Remedy for a Broken Angel earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author. As a screenwriter, Johnson won the Humanitas Prize for Ruby Bridges and Crown Heights.
Featured Book
But Where’s Home?
It’s 1963 in the small town of Monroe, New York. The Arringtons, a Black family, buy a house in a picturesque, all-white neighborhood. Some residents are welcoming, but many react to Dr. Philip Arrington, his wife Velma, and their daughters Livia and Maddie by conspiring against their success in both big and small ways. Amid this mix of hostility and shaky acceptance, the Arringtons must navigate their careers, deal with a volatile marriage, and raise their daughters. Deeply emotional, funny, and unflinchingly honest, But Where’s Home? lays bare the realities of Black life in America, challenging readers to confront racism, classism, and colonized thinking.
Meet Toni Ann Johnson and get a copy of their book at the 2026 Kentucky Book Festival, Saturday, November 7, 2026, at Joseph-Beth Booksellers.