Writing Forward Series
with Johnnie Bernhard,
Award-Winning Author and Speaker
Wednesdays, January 7th, 14th, & 21st, 2026 | 1PM - 3PM
204 S Austin St Rockport, TX
$60 For Members, $75 For Nonmembers
Class Information:
January 7th, 1 - 3p.m. -Exploring Narrative Pace
January 14th, 1-3p.m. - Point of View
January 21st, 1-3p.m. - The Literary Arts Community/Forming a Writers' Group
About the Instructor:
Johnnie Bernhard, Author and Teaching Artist
A former teacher and journalist, Johnnie Bernhard is passionate about reading and writing. Her nonfiction work(s) have appeared in the following publications: Houston Style Magazine, The Mississippi Press, the international Word Among Us, The Texas Review, and the Cowbird-NPR production on small town America. As a nationally recognized teaching artist, she teaches craft classes for writing communities across the country.
A Good Girl (2017, Texas Review Press) was shortlisted in the 2015 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Writing Competition, the 2017 Kindle Book Award for Literary Fiction, and the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Fiction of the Year Award. It was a nominee for the 2018 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and placed in the permanent collection of the Texas State Library and Archive Commission, Texas Center for the Book.
Johnnie’s second novel, How We Came to Be (2018, Texas Review Press) was named a “Must Read” by Southern Writers Magazine and selected for the 2019 Deep South Magazine recommended reading list. It is the recipient of the Summerlee Book Prize, HM by the Center for History and Culture at Lamar University.
Her third novel, Sisters of the Undertow (2020, Texas Review Press) was chosen for discussion at the 2020 national AWP Conference, the Pat Conroy Literary Center of South Carolina, the Southern Book Festival/Humanities Tennessee, and Words and Music Literary Feast of New Orleans. Named “Best of the University Presses, 100 Books” by the Association of University Presses, Sisters of the Undertow was placed in the Texas Center for the Book, State Library Collection and received First Place in the Press Women of Texas Communications Contest. It was named a “Big Texas Read” by Gemini Ink of San Antonio and Writing Workshops of Dallas.
Her fourth novel, Hannah & Ariela (2022, TCU Press) was named by Publisher’s Weekly Magazine “Books to Read,” May 2022. TCU Press named the novel Best Fiction of 2022 in recognition of University Press Week, Association of University Presses. It was selected as novel of the year by the Press Women of Texas and received First Place, Fiction with the National Federation of Press Women.
The Witch of Sonora, a stand alone sequel to Hannah & Ariela, is set for publication in September of 2026 with Stoney Creek Publishing, a member of the Texas Book Consortium and Texas A&M University Press.
Johnnie was chosen as a selected speaker in the 2020 TEDx Fearless Women Series
Wednesdays January 7th, 14th, and 21st, 2026 1PM-3PM
$60 members, $75 non-members