On Friday, February 24, the Winston County Library will host a Meet the Author event introducing Ocean Springs native Johnnie Bernhard. The Friends of the Library will provide a free sack lunch to the first 24 attendees of the event.
Ms. Bernhard, a former teacher and journalist, is also a seasoned author. She has also written A Good Girl, which has won multiple accolades. Honors for the book include making the shortlist of the 2015 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Writing Competition and a nomination for the 2018 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. This same book won the 2017 Kindle Book Award for Literary Fiction; The Good Girl also won the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Fiction of the Year Award.
Ms. Bernhard’s novel was also placed permanently in the collection of the Texas State Library and Archive Commission (Texas Center for the Book).
Johnnie has always had a passion for both the written word and reading. She has also written pieces that have appeared in the Houston Style Magazine and The Mississippi Press, among other notable publications.
Bernhard wrote a second book, How We Came to Be, in 2018; she completed another book, Sisters of the Undertow, in 2020. Both books received numerous awards as well.
The author will present her latest effort, Hannah and Ariela, which was inspired by a major problem in America today – human trafficking. Hannah Duran, a widow rancher on the Southern U.S. border, is the protagonist of the novel. The tale, while fiction, could easily have been copied straight from the latest headlines. The book explores the justice system, cartels, human trafficking, and explores what life for those living on the border is like. Ms. Bernhard offers that she has family who own land on the Southern border, and the travesty of human trafficking is an issue of major interest to her.
Interested persons should head over to the Winston County Library at 11:30 next Friday to meet Ms. Bernhard and hear her speak regarding her writing career and her latest writing project.
