Jocelyn Nicole Johnson talks home, identity, and 'My Monticello'

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson taught at an elementary school for two decades before becoming, as she jokes, "a 50-year-old debutante" author. She's been writing since grade school, but Johnson says her debut story collection, My Monticello, which came out this month, might not have been able to come much sooner: "I think the world has to be in a place to accept and be interested in what you have to say," she muses, "Some...things are within your control and some...are just not. You know, you can write something absolutely gorgeous and it doesn't mean it will find its readers."

The world, it seems, is finally ready. investigates questions of home and community and belonging in and around Charlottesville, Va. The book, which consists of short stories and a novella, follows mostly Black and brown characters as they navigate