San Antonio Book Festival - Bret Anthony Johnston
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Book Festival Author

Bret Anthony Johnston

Bret Anthony Johnston is the author of the internationally bestselling novel Remember Me Like This and the award-winning Corpus Christi: Stories and is the editor of Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Creative Writer. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, The Paris Review, Thrasher Magazine, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and the Sunday Times Short Story Award, he was born and raised in Texas and is the director of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.

His latest book is Encounters with Unexpected Animals: Stories.

More About Bret Anthony Johnston

  • Encounters with Unexpected Animals: Stories

    "Encounters with Unexpected Animals" takes readers deep into the heart of bestselling author Bret Anthony Johnston’s home state of Texas, where teenagers search for love, parents grasp at connections with their children, and animals—real or imagined, familiar or unexpected—are reminders of the mystery, danger, and beauty of being alive.

    In “Caiman,” a father buys a baby alligator in hopes of keeping his family safe. In “Soldier of Fortune,” a teenage boy dog-sits for his neighbors after tragedy strikes, and his innocent snooping uncovers the family’s most guarded secret. And in the luminous “Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows About Horses,” an elderly man’s heart is laid bare with the raw and breathtaking power of wild horses.

    Johnston’s humor, empathy, and mastery of prose ring out through each story, bringing every finely-drawn character to radiant life. Individually, the stories are by turns suspenseful, poignant and exhilarating. Taken together, they reveal the abiding connections that lead us from sorrow and impermanence back to ourselves and, ultimately, to each other.

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