By JIM LUKSIC
The Progress
Award-winning memoirist and essayist Kase Johnstun discussed his new novel among a plethora of topics on Thursday, May 16 at Mesquite Library.
The writer, whose day job is manager of Utah Center for the Book, focused on his latest novel titled Cast Away during an interactive hour.
Virgin Valley Artists Associaiton board member Steve Dudrow, who also co-hosts a local podcast entitled The Art Box, invited Johnstun to town after they had met at a Utah-based writers workshop.
“Kase loves to talk about writing,” Dudrow said.
That was evident last Thursday, when Johnstun proffered insight on books, publishers, word counts, and his family.
At the onset, he focused on his latest labor of love, Cast Away, its title similar to the television program Survivor.
Although Johnstun began writing the tome in 2012 and initially submitted it the next year, it was officially released in May 2024. He proceeded to read excerpts from the work, whose narrative begins in Mexico but is based in Utah.
“Its protagonist is about feeling like you don’t belong – essentially like me,” he said in referencing his half-Hispanic, non-Latter-day Saint heritage. “Some parents in Utah wouldn’t allow their kids to play with me.”
Johnstun was asked for his Cast Away take-away.
“I want readers to know there’s so much nuance to immigration,” he replied, noting that publishing companies wanted no part of the book circa 2017 and beyond.
Regarding the nuts and bolts of getting a manuscript bound, covered, marketed and sold, Johnstun didn’t mince words.
“Publishing is brutal,” he told the audience, which included Mesquite Works Board member George Gault, local artist Floyd Johnson, Juniper Outpost owner Charlotte Sirianni, and Vanessa Giebink, the library’s assistant branch manager.
Johnstun emphasized the significance of word count; submit too many, and you may as well hit the bricks. First-time authors ought to present 75K to 80K words – which he called “the sweet spot.”
Most days, he begins writing at the crack of dawn, because “…once I check business emails, my creativity is gone.”
When dialed-in, the wordsmith explained that he tends to care more about characters than plot. “My agent knows where my heart is,” Johnstun added.
His heart is certainly with Setting The Table – about baseball and Alzheimer’s – one of Johnstun’s submissions making the rounds within publishing circles. As is always the case with his art, this one’s personal: He worked in professional baseball, and his late father endured Alzheimer’s disease.
Although Johnstun chronicles many aspects of his personal life, he prefers fiction because “it’s easier and more fun.”
Easy and fun wouldn’t accurately describe the man’s memoir, Beyond the Grip of Craniosynostosis; Johnstun was born with a fully-fused skull, which required an operation to split it. He temporarily died during surgery, before the surgeons revived him.
Dudrow praised a subsequent Johnstun work, Let the Wild Grasses Grow, as “my new favorite work of fiction.”
Back home in Ogden – where he was named the 2021 Mayor’s Award recipient for the Literary Arts – Johnstun has re-established the Utah Book Award, which came to a halt in 2015. “People missed it, so we’re excited about it,” he said.
As time wound down Thursday, Johnstun touched on Cast Away again, citing it as his favorite novel because he didn’t follow standard rules while creating it.
“I feel lucky,” he said. “I love just being around books, connecting readers with writers.”
