A selection of discs from Denis Johnson’s collection. Johnson’s handwritten note states, ‘these discs are the only copies of any drafts from before 1992.’ Photo by Anthony Maddaloni. Image courtesy of Harry Ransom Center.

Since July 2011, Harry Ransom Center archivist Amy Armstrong has been processing and cataloging the Denis Johnson papers, which are now available for research. Armstrong shares her insight about processing the Johnson materials.

“Guess what collection I just started processing?” I asked my husband in a voice that implied he would be jealous. “Denis Johnson!” Johnson is the author of Jesus’ Son and Tree of Smoke. I have his books in my house and he is one of my husband’s favorite writers. So from the beginning, I felt lucky.…

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Writer Denis Johnson, whose archive is currently being cataloged at the Ransom Center, is best known for his National Book Award–winning novel Tree of Smoke (2007), Jesus’ Son (1992), and several plays and poetry collections. Farrar, Straus and Giroux recently published Johnson’s novella Train Dreams, which was originally published in a slightly different form in The Paris Review in 2002.

Johnson’s archive contains materials related to the novella, some of which can be seen in the above slideshow.

In honor of the book’s release, the Ransom Center is giving away two copies of the novella. Email hrcgiveaway@gmail.com with “Johnson” in the subject line by midnight CST tonight to be entered in a drawing for the books.

Denis Johnson's 'Train Dreams.'

A selection of discs from Denis Johnson’s collection. The handwritten note points out that ‘These discs are the only copies of any drafts from before 1992.’ Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.

As an avid reader of Denis Johnson’s work (I bought my first Playboy magazine to read Nobody Move in serial form), I was thrilled to have the opportunity to go through his papers. Seeing Johnson speak at the 2008 Flair Symposium, “Creating a Usable Past: Writers, Archives, & Institutions,” had amplified, for me at least, the desire to know as much as one can about a favorite author. Flair’s intimate venue and Johnson’s candidness about his own archive gave mystique to his lost work and to what he has decided to…

Denis Johnson speaks on a panel at the Ransom Center's 2008 Flair Symposium on 'Building the Archive.' Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.

The Ransom Center has acquired the papers of National Book Award winner Denis Johnson, author of Jesus’ Son and Tree of Smoke.

The collection includes manuscripts, typescripts, research materials, journals, correspondence, family photos and juvenilia, press clippings, books, and other items. Many of Johnson’s pre-1992 works exist only in digital form, and bundles of floppy disks with manuscript drafts are part of the archive. An early scrapbook includes baby footprints, Johnson’s birth certificate, family photos and correspondence between Johnson and his family.