Meet Toni Ann Johnson 2025 James Baker Hall Foundation Book Award Judge

“I felt I had lost my voice as a screenplay writer,” states Ms. Johnson. “It was difficult for me to have words put into my mouth through endless rewrites and I would say to these people no one would ever say that or act that way! In my literary career, I have much more control over my work.”

The change has been significant. In 2012 she won the Flannery O’Conner Award for short fiction with her linked collection Light Skin Gone to Waste. Her novella, Homecoming, was a semi-finalist for the William Faulkner Wisdom Award in fiction. It won Accents Publishing’s inaugural novella contest in 2020 and was released in May of 2023. Her new book will be released in February of 2026 and will be the third in a series that addresses a middle-aged African American woman facing loss as she returns to her conservative white hometown. The series tackles race, isolation, childhood trauma, abandonment and eventually healing.

With such a busy schedule, why sign on to judge first time writers in Kentucky? “I became involved through Accents Publishing and received an introduction to Larry (Managing Director Larry Pemble) at the Kentucky Book Festival last November. Through that we discussed my involvement and I am very excited to get started.”

Toni Ann continues. “It is a privilege to be able to read entries. It is the opportunity to have writers know that their voice matters. It could change someone’s life in a big way and add confidence to their writing. I will be looking for authenticity of voice, real emotion and how the human condition is moved by the experience of the characters.”

We are so excited to have Toni Ann on board with this year’s James Baker Hall Book Award. Make sure you watch for her new book coming out in February 2026, But Where’s Home, through Screen Door Press, a subsidiary of the University of Kentucky Press and edited by Kentucky’s own Crystal Wilkinson.