Gordon Lee Johnson
I'm Cahuilla/Cupeno Indian and live on the Pala Indian Reservation. Good or bad, I've had a desultory approach to education. I studied philosophy, literature and film at UC Santa Cruz, journalism at UC Berkeley, communications at UC San Diego. I studied creative writing at Vermont College and got a master of fine arts in creative writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles.
For much of my life I've earned my living with my fingers on a keyboard. I worked at small Indian newspapers, the Associated Press in Los Angeles, I was a reporter for a small weekly in Fallbrook, editor of The Californian, a daily newspaper covering Southwest Riverside County, a feature writer and columnist for The Press-Enterprise, a 200,000 circulation newspaper serving the Inland Empire.
I have two books: Rez Dog Eat Beans and Fast Cars and Frybread, and I have poetry and short stories published in various periodicals.
I have four children and eight grandchildren who live nearby. My grandchildren ask for pickles from my icebox.