[Vwoolf] Georgia Johnston

[Judith Allen]

I was in New York's Morgan Library turning off my phone before the 
performance by Patti Smith and her daughter, Jesse, in tribute to Emily 
Dickinson. As I checked my email, I saw Georgia's name and did not have 
to read any further. Knowing how much Georgia loved poetry, the readings 
and singing by Patti Smith worked to ease the shock.

I met Georgia more than 28 years ago -- when there was a Woolf Society, 
but no conferences. The first conference, at Pace University, and 
organized by Mark Hussey in 1991, was called /Virginia Woolf 
Miscellanies. /I organized a panel, 'Virginia Woolf and Her 
Experimentalist Contemporaries: Mansfield, Richardson and Stein, and 
asked Georgia to do something on Stein. Her paper, 'After the Invention 
of the Gramophone: Hearing the Woman in Stein's /Autobiography /and 
Woolf's/Three Guineas' /is in the Proceedings of this first conference, 
edited by Mark Hussey and Vara Neverow. Reading Jane Garrity's comments 
on Georgia's monograph titled 'Gender as Textuality: a Modernist 
Methodology', and her idea for conference on early 20th century women 
writers, one finds the seeds for this later work in that first 
conference paper on Woolf and Stein.

As Ann Fernald mentioned, Georgia's work on the essay was very valuable 
for those of us who were writing our dissertations on the essay. Her 
article, 'The Whole Achievement in Virginia Woolf's The Common Reader', 
in /Essays on the Essay: Redefining the Genre,/ edited by Alexander J. 
Butrym (1989) included a bio that revealed something else about Georgia: 
she used to teach creative writing.

And in another story about Georgia's conference in St. Louis: a large 
group arrived at a venue ( probably a plenary), and it was locked. 
Georgia did not have the key, and had to get someone to bring one (this 
is pre-cell phones). As many have described Georgia's calm and positive 
responses, her wonderful smile prevailed, We waited quite a while, but 
she set the tone.

I last heard from her after the Leeds Conference, and her wonderful 
spirit and courage came through. I can only echo all the descriptions of 
Georgia that have come to this list, and feel so happy that our paths 
crossed, and I got to know such a wonderful woman.

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