Caleb Johnson is the author of the novel Treeborne (Picador), which was named an honorable mention for the Southern Book Prize and longlisted for The Crook's Corner Book Prize. His nonfiction appears widely in magazines and newspapers, including Southern Living and The Wall Street Journal, and has been cited in Best American Essays. As an undergraduate, he studied journalism at the University of Alabama and later earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Wyoming. He has received fellowships from The Jentel Foundation, the Longleaf Writers Conference, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference. He taught at Appalachian State University from 2018-2022, and returned in 2025. More information about his writing can be found here.
Education
- University of Wyoming, MFA, 2013
- The University of Alabama, BA, 2008
Selected Publications
Fiction
Treeborne: a novel, Picador, hardcover 2018 | paperback 2019
“The Camper,” Joyland, 2023
“The Sisters,” The Carolina Quarterly, 2021
Nonfiction
"Ghosts of Tuscaloosa," The Sewanee Review, 2025
“Snorkeling the Wild Rivers of the Blue Ridge Mountains,” The Wall Street Journal, 2023
"Granny and Loretta," Southern Living, 2020, cited in Best American Essays
