MACON, Ga. — Mercer University English professor Dr. Gordon Johnston was recently chosen for the Inaugural Georgia Humanities Georgia Circuit Speakers Bureau.
Modeled after a traditional speakers bureau — but broader in spirit and more dynamic in form — the Georgia Circuit brings storytellers, scholars, artists, musicians, culture bearers and community leaders to towns and cities across Georgia to share their knowledge, spark conversation and inspire civic imagination.
“The Georgia Circuit is a marvelous idea. I’m honored to be in the company of such articulate, knowledgeable, Georgia-grounded creatives,” said Dr. Johnston, who was recently named a finalist for the prestigious Townsend Prize for Fiction for his short story collection Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee.
“The next-best thing to being on the river is sharing my experience of its history and wildness with a motivated audience — and Georgia Humanities has made it easy to connect with such audiences all over the state.”
Dr. Johnston will present A River Runs Through Us. The performance weaves personal narratives with ecological reflections to show how Georgia’s waterways have shaped the people who have lived beside them across many generations.
“Dr. Johnston has, literally, put a lifetime of explorations and experiences into these poems about the lifeblood of Georgia — its rivers,” said Dr. John Thomas Scott, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “To read or hear them is to be transported to places most of us will not experience on our own.”
