While the Atlanta Public Library

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Background reading


Whenever I’ve had a book published I have celebrated every sale. But the biggest cause for celebration – the sale that always made me most proud – was when a library acquired a copy or two. Individuals may purchase a book, shelve it or pass it along to a friend, and thereafter it disappears. Libraries are forever.


Fran Moreland Johns
This is the belief that underscores my enthusiasm for the Internet Archive. may one day cull my book to make room for someone else’s, those words I labored over and so treasure, whether anyone else ever phone number database treasures them or not, are safe with the Internet Archive. And may it thrive and prosper.


Johns writing cutlines under the rapt gaze of Richmond Times-Dispatch photographers. Disclaimer: Johns quit smoking in 1964.
This is all a very long way from my literary beginnings on a Royal portable typewriter. I wrote for newspapers and magazines – the Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA Today, National Real Estate Investor to cite just a few of the wildly different multiple dozens – from the early 1950s into the technologically bewildering 2020s. Eventually I added an MFA in short fiction to my BA in Art and veered into short stories, with a few tiny publication successes, including Dying unafraid (1999) and Perilous Times:
An inside look at abortion before – and after – Roe v Wade (2013). When the internet came along, I tiptoed in via a blog for news aggregate site True/Slant.com which eventually morphed into today’s franjohns.net. With a little luck my short story collection, Marshallville Stories, will be published in 2022; the Internet Archive will get one of the first copies.