POET & NOVELIST

Adam Keith Johnston

Writing about grief, place, and the ordinary ways people care for one another.

ABOUT

Adam Keith Johnston is a Canadian writer based in Vancouver. His work explores family, grief, place, belonging, and the ordinary objects and gestures through which people care for one another.His first poetry collection, Within Reach, is complete and seeking publication. He is the author of Passable, a completed novel preparing for submission, and The Long Repair, currently in final revisions. He also writes picture books for children.His professional background spans humanitarian response, emergency management, and wildfire.

WRITING

Within Reach
Poetry collection · CompleteA full-length collection exploring intimacy, grief, memory, marriage, parenthood, and the imperfect ways we try to care for one another. The poems move between humanitarian work and the smaller objects, routines, and moments through which relationships are remembered, tested, and sustained.Passable
Literary fiction · Complete, preparing for submissionA Canadian humanitarian professional who has spent his adult life responding to disaster finds his own life unsettled by illness, marriage, fatherhood, and wildfire evacuation. Passable explores emotional distance, mortality, love, and the difficulty of accepting care when being useful has always been easier than being present.The Long Repair
Literary fiction · Complete draft, final revisionsSet on a struggling ranch in northern British Columbia, The Long Repair follows a man drawn into helping his late friend’s family navigate grief, financial pressure, and an uncertain future. It is a novel about inheritance, obligation, friendship, and the difference between keeping something alive and refusing to let it go.WRITING FOR CHILDRENCome See, Come See
Picture book · Complete, ready for submission
A child explores a grandmother’s garden and discovers the wonder of paying close attention to the natural world.Before Knowing
Picture book · Complete, ready for submission
Along the forests and shoreline of Canada’s Pacific coast, a quiet grandfather teaches a child to notice the living world before rushing to name it.The Charlie and Maya books
A series of picture books · Complete, ready for submission
Stories about a little girl and her very large dog, exploring belonging, change, separation, empathy and family.