Local Author Pens N.B.-Based Murder Mystery Series
FREDERICTON – A local playwright and author is giving diverse representation to marginalized communities through her work. As a person with disabilities, J. Ivanel Johnson says it’s important to bring representation to people like her.
Johnson has always had a passion for writing. She wrote her first poem at the age of three and a half and has always felt like a natural-born writer.
“My mother still keeps a copy of that [poem] that she wrote out on her night-side table because she thinks it’s so hilarious,” Johnson tells Huddle.
Her first true writing experiences go back to writing family newsletters as a child. She would write the copies out by hand with carbon paper and would distribute them to members of her family.
When she first started writing novels, Johnson says that her first murder mystery, Just A Still Life, along with the true stem of her passion for writing, was inspired by her grandmother’s passion and original manuscript from 1947.
“She wrote many, many, many manuscripts but she just tucked them away into a big truck,” Johnson says. “I think she tried once to get something published and they told her that she had to add more boudoir scenes. So, she just never, ever, ever sent anything out to a publisher after that again and she just wrote for herself.”
In memory of her grandmother, Johnson has taken one of her manuscripts and published the New Brunswick-based, murder mystery, which came out in September of 2022.
Just (e)State Mysteries
Just A Still Life is the first novel in Johnson’s Just (e)State Mysteries series. The “cozy mystery” series is based in the provinces of New Brunswick, Ontario, and Yukon in the 1970s.
Johnson says the first novel in the series is based around P. J., who is the godmother of a detective inspector who has just been transferred to Fredericton. Together, the pair work to solve a murder mystery.
The first novel is dedicated to the fallen Fredericton police officers Lawrence Robert Costello and Sara Burns, with the permission of their families, and even takes inspiration from them in some of the characters.
Within her novels, Johnson has included a wide variety of representation of marginalized communities in her characters.
“This is important to me because I’m disabled; I’ve been disabled from a very young age,” she says.
In the past, Johnson has spoken and taught a lot about the importance of diverse representation in places such as Montana, England, and more.
Some of the characters in the Just (e)State Mysteries series are people with disabilities, members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, and others. Through a variety of personal connections in her personal life, Johnson feels she is giving a voice to these communities.
“I really have seen and taught and worked with a lot of marginalized communities,” she says. “I’ve always been one of those that just stands up for [other people]. I don’t like people to be bullied.”
Rough Notes
Johnson’s musical, Rough Notes, has recently been taken up by the musical theater program at Sheridan College in Ontario.
She says Rough Notes is a Canadian, historical musical set in New Brunswick with a wide variety of cultural diversity.
On April 5, 2023, a group of musical theatre performers who all live with disabilities will be performing some of Johnson’s songs from Rough Notes.
“We’ve now got a musical that’s written in New Brunswick, that’s set in New Brunswick, and it’s gone all the way to the biggest musical theatre school in Canada, really,” says Johnson.
Although none of the characters in Rough Notes are themselves disabled, Johnson says that she is very happy that a group of performers with disabilities are choosing to perform some of her songs.
“I feel that it’s just important, and I feel like the more that we get that out there, the more it will start to become more normalized.”
What’s to come?
This June, Johnson will release her second novel to the Just (e)State Mysteries series, Just A Stale Mate, which she says will include even more representation of marginalized communities. It is now available for pre-order online.
Just A Stale Mate is up for two awards this year but Johnson says that she does not necessarily see awards as a win in her books.
“I say the only good thing about an award is that it gives you a little bit more of a voice, so that I can then go on with my wheelchair and say, you know, ‘I want to say this’ and ‘I want to accept this on behalf of the disabled community,” she says.
Ryley Roach is a Huddle student intern, based in Fredericton. Send her your feedback and story ideas: [email protected]