Skip to main content

Gordon Lee Johnson

GordonJohnson

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.

GordonJohnson
Support Provided By
Eileen_Doktorski_Art_Oblivion_2.jpg
Sculptor Eileen Doktorski believes in the healing properties of art. Often dark, her sprawling installations comment on domestic violence and wastefulness.
Residents of the resource-starved North Shore community on the Salton Sea hope a new plan for renewal and social practice art will promise a more sustainable future.
DSC_0957.JPG
Ricardo Breceda is a legend in Borrego Springs for his sea monster creation and other metal sculptor creatures.
reza_5
Iranian-born Reza Sepahdari makes art in Temecula's wine country. He believes in the role of the artist as a messenger of peace.
dime_2.jpg
Dime Stories filled a need for an open-mike venue in Temecula, a place where writers could get their words heard by an audience.
For over 20 years, KUCR Indian Time Radio has been a point of pride in the Indian community, cementing their own place within Southern California's pop culture sphere.
Kalani Queypo and Hong Lei, "Stand-Off at Highway 37." | Photo: Jean Bruce Scott.
Native Voices at the Autry puts the spotlight on American Indian playwrights, helping them transition their culturally-inspired works into full-scale productions.
jimmyk_2.jpg
For Joshua Tree-based musician Jimmy King, the blues is a mission to find meaning, a discovery of what matters, and an embrace of what's real.
Tracy Lee Nelson is a skateboard artist, combining form and function in skateboard design that resonates with Indian themes.
After a devastating fire in 2004, the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony is being resurrected by community efforts in a secluded natural setting in Temecula.
An expert on Day of the Dead history, Consuelo Flores builds altars to the deceased every year. But she contends that the tradition is about life, not death.
Raymond Lafferty
Kumeyaay Indian artist Raymond Lafferty's art is in many ways a search for home. Bucking conventions all his life, he often felt alienated as an Indian trying to figure out where he belonged with his own people.
Active loading indicator