Liz Johnston
@lizjohnston.bsky.social
She/her. Writer, book nerd & editor. https://liz-johnston.ca. THE FALL-DOWN EFFECT coming out from Book*hug Press in 2026. Pre-order here: https://shoplocal.bookmanager.com/isbn/9781771669627
My novel, THE FALL-DOWN EFFECT, comes out April 21, 2026, & I'm excited to share it's now available for pre-order on @bookhugpress.bsky.social's website: bookhugpress.ca/.../the-fall...
September 5, 2025 at 7:57 PM
My novel, THE FALL-DOWN EFFECT, comes out April 21, 2026, & I'm excited to share it's now available for pre-order on @bookhugpress.bsky.social's website: bookhugpress.ca/.../the-fall...
I’m so happy my strange story “AI, Author of the Quixote” found a home in the latest @fillingstation.bsky.social. In conversation with Jorge Luis Borges’s “Pierre Menard...,” this piece was a big departure for me in style and voice and form—and it was so much fun to write. www.fillingstation.ca
August 11, 2025 at 5:37 PM
I’m so happy my strange story “AI, Author of the Quixote” found a home in the latest @fillingstation.bsky.social. In conversation with Jorge Luis Borges’s “Pierre Menard...,” this piece was a big departure for me in style and voice and form—and it was so much fun to write. www.fillingstation.ca
“A great long sickness leaves the patient with the understanding of change. The knowledge of sickness is as long as the knowledge of love.”
I was enthralled by this slim, haunting novel by Miranda Schreiber.
I was enthralled by this slim, haunting novel by Miranda Schreiber.
July 17, 2025 at 5:13 PM
“A great long sickness leaves the patient with the understanding of change. The knowledge of sickness is as long as the knowledge of love.”
I was enthralled by this slim, haunting novel by Miranda Schreiber.
I was enthralled by this slim, haunting novel by Miranda Schreiber.
I absolutely love the cover Ingrid Paulson created for The Fall-Down Effect, out spring 2026 from @bookhugpress.bsky.social: the retro feel and big red letters, the drama of the river crashing through the forest. 😍 I'm so lucky & super grateful! (Pre-order link in bio.)
July 16, 2025 at 8:18 PM
I absolutely love the cover Ingrid Paulson created for The Fall-Down Effect, out spring 2026 from @bookhugpress.bsky.social: the retro feel and big red letters, the drama of the river crashing through the forest. 😍 I'm so lucky & super grateful! (Pre-order link in bio.)
Received my copy of the new Soundings East, featuring my short story “Milk and Milk Substitutes,” in the mail today! Huge thanks to the magazine’s editors. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the issue!
June 18, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Received my copy of the new Soundings East, featuring my short story “Milk and Milk Substitutes,” in the mail today! Huge thanks to the magazine’s editors. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the issue!
Went to a lovely reading last night to celebrate two @knifeforkbook.bsky.social chapbooks, I CAN MAKE IT ALL UP TO YOU by Jacob Alvarado and FIELDWORK by @sadiqademeijer.bsky.social, with Maureen Scott Harris, former publisher of Page Lecture chapbooks.
June 17, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Went to a lovely reading last night to celebrate two @knifeforkbook.bsky.social chapbooks, I CAN MAKE IT ALL UP TO YOU by Jacob Alvarado and FIELDWORK by @sadiqademeijer.bsky.social, with Maureen Scott Harris, former publisher of Page Lecture chapbooks.
“To be stripped of hope yet retain happiness.
“To be in despair yet know joy.
“These contradictions were possible, she felt them even now, and this, too, caused pain.” —Madeleine Thien, The Book of Records
“To be in despair yet know joy.
“These contradictions were possible, she felt them even now, and this, too, caused pain.” —Madeleine Thien, The Book of Records
May 26, 2025 at 7:37 PM
“To be stripped of hope yet retain happiness.
“To be in despair yet know joy.
“These contradictions were possible, she felt them even now, and this, too, caused pain.” —Madeleine Thien, The Book of Records
“To be in despair yet know joy.
“These contradictions were possible, she felt them even now, and this, too, caused pain.” —Madeleine Thien, The Book of Records
Two weeks until I get to read with the brilliant Anne McLean & Jaspreet Singh to celebrate the launch of DREAMS OF THE EPOCH & THE ROCK! Tuesday, May 27, at Flying Books on College. More details here: www.eventbrite.com/e/toronto-la...
May 13, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Two weeks until I get to read with the brilliant Anne McLean & Jaspreet Singh to celebrate the launch of DREAMS OF THE EPOCH & THE ROCK! Tuesday, May 27, at Flying Books on College. More details here: www.eventbrite.com/e/toronto-la...
My heart is full after last night’s event at the Toronto Reference Library for Madeleine Thien's THE BOOK OF RECORDS. I’m so looking forward to reading this book! (And happy we got a @brickliterary.bsky.social photo op.)
May 6, 2025 at 1:41 PM
My heart is full after last night’s event at the Toronto Reference Library for Madeleine Thien's THE BOOK OF RECORDS. I’m so looking forward to reading this book! (And happy we got a @brickliterary.bsky.social photo op.)
What a fun set of reading at the Toronto launch of @prairiefiremag.bsky.social 50-over-50 issues. Congratulations to all, with an extra cheer for my pal Marcia Walker!
May 2, 2025 at 6:36 PM
What a fun set of reading at the Toronto launch of @prairiefiremag.bsky.social 50-over-50 issues. Congratulations to all, with an extra cheer for my pal Marcia Walker!
Congratulations, @catebush.bsky.social, on the launch of Skin!
April 25, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Congratulations, @catebush.bsky.social, on the launch of Skin!
Great conversation at the Toronto Reference Library to celebrate @biidaasamose.bsky.social’s THEORY OF WATER. “We’re in the fight of our lives, the fight for our planet…. You don’t put this on hold.”
April 24, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Great conversation at the Toronto Reference Library to celebrate @biidaasamose.bsky.social’s THEORY OF WATER. “We’re in the fight of our lives, the fight for our planet…. You don’t put this on hold.”
Great to see Vinh Nguyen’s The Migrant Rain Falls in reverse featured in the Publishers Weekly newsletter! pubwkly.omeclk.com/portal/publi...
April 11, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Great to see Vinh Nguyen’s The Migrant Rain Falls in reverse featured in the Publishers Weekly newsletter! pubwkly.omeclk.com/portal/publi...
I’m thrilled to have my short story “Friendship Hiatus” appear in the new issue of Grain alongside so much work I cannot wait to read! (This may also be the first publication where I got to mention my debut novel, forthcoming from @bookhugpress.bsky.social in 2026, in my contributor bio!)
April 9, 2025 at 6:36 PM
I’m thrilled to have my short story “Friendship Hiatus” appear in the new issue of Grain alongside so much work I cannot wait to read! (This may also be the first publication where I got to mention my debut novel, forthcoming from @bookhugpress.bsky.social in 2026, in my contributor bio!)
“Beyond our footsteps that will be erased, the words will preserve the memory of it, and what lived before me I will give to what lives after me.” Just finished Hélène Dorion’s Not Even the Sound of a River, a lovely novel of mothers and daughters, life and poetry.
March 16, 2025 at 9:10 PM
“Beyond our footsteps that will be erased, the words will preserve the memory of it, and what lived before me I will give to what lives after me.” Just finished Hélène Dorion’s Not Even the Sound of a River, a lovely novel of mothers and daughters, life and poetry.
Huge thanks to the @ontarioarts.bsky.social for the funding I received through the Recommender Grants for Writers program. This much-needed gift of time will help me complete a first draft of a new novel. Thank you! The arts are always vital, and Ontario artists need support now more than ever.
March 13, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Huge thanks to the @ontarioarts.bsky.social for the funding I received through the Recommender Grants for Writers program. This much-needed gift of time will help me complete a first draft of a new novel. Thank you! The arts are always vital, and Ontario artists need support now more than ever.
The world in PRIVATE RITES—of nonstop rain and flooding, of figuring out how to live and live in the face of THE END—is going to stay with me a long time, I suspect.
February 25, 2025 at 8:09 PM
The world in PRIVATE RITES—of nonstop rain and flooding, of figuring out how to live and live in the face of THE END—is going to stay with me a long time, I suspect.
“It is perhaps the great discomfort of those trying to silence the world to discover that we have voices sealed inside our heads, voices that with each passing day grow even louder than the clamour of the world outside.” —Edwidge Danticat, THE FARMING OF BONES
February 9, 2025 at 9:47 PM
“It is perhaps the great discomfort of those trying to silence the world to discover that we have voices sealed inside our heads, voices that with each passing day grow even louder than the clamour of the world outside.” —Edwidge Danticat, THE FARMING OF BONES
Had a great time last night at the launch of The Riveter. Congratulations, Jack Wang!
January 30, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Had a great time last night at the launch of The Riveter. Congratulations, Jack Wang!
“A novel demands a lot of time. Why should we start writing a novel when everything’s coming to an end?”
“We should always write as if everything was coming to an end.”
“So everything doesn’t?”
“Yes, so that it doesn’t.”
—THE LIVING AND THE REST by José Eduardo Agualusa, translate by Daniel Hahn
“We should always write as if everything was coming to an end.”
“So everything doesn’t?”
“Yes, so that it doesn’t.”
—THE LIVING AND THE REST by José Eduardo Agualusa, translate by Daniel Hahn
January 27, 2025 at 6:48 PM
“A novel demands a lot of time. Why should we start writing a novel when everything’s coming to an end?”
“We should always write as if everything was coming to an end.”
“So everything doesn’t?”
“Yes, so that it doesn’t.”
—THE LIVING AND THE REST by José Eduardo Agualusa, translate by Daniel Hahn
“We should always write as if everything was coming to an end.”
“So everything doesn’t?”
“Yes, so that it doesn’t.”
—THE LIVING AND THE REST by José Eduardo Agualusa, translate by Daniel Hahn
“Her devotion to doing things the right way had been unflagging..., and she would’ve gone on like that indefinitely. She didn’t understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived.”
January 13, 2025 at 3:22 PM
“Her devotion to doing things the right way had been unflagging..., and she would’ve gone on like that indefinitely. She didn’t understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived.”
Some of the books that kept me company in 2024—a totally incomplete roundup. A few that aren’t pictured but I must mention: THE LOWLAND by Jhumpa Lahiri, AMERICA WAS HARD TO FIND by Kathleen Alcott, and GREEK LESSONS by Han Kang all knocked my socks off.
December 30, 2024 at 9:22 PM
Some of the books that kept me company in 2024—a totally incomplete roundup. A few that aren’t pictured but I must mention: THE LOWLAND by Jhumpa Lahiri, AMERICA WAS HARD TO FIND by Kathleen Alcott, and GREEK LESSONS by Han Kang all knocked my socks off.
Attn: Canadian & US readers! I want to take advantage of Brick's holiday deal to gift 4 subscriptions to people who've never subscribed to the mag before. Comment or DM me by Friday (Dec. 6) for a shot at one of the subscriptions, and I'll pull 4 names to send gifts to.
December 3, 2024 at 2:27 PM
Attn: Canadian & US readers! I want to take advantage of Brick's holiday deal to gift 4 subscriptions to people who've never subscribed to the mag before. Comment or DM me by Friday (Dec. 6) for a shot at one of the subscriptions, and I'll pull 4 names to send gifts to.
So glad I popped by Books & Brews at Leftfield Brewery yesterday. What a fun time!
November 17, 2024 at 3:52 PM
So glad I popped by Books & Brews at Leftfield Brewery yesterday. What a fun time!