Born and raised in New Orleans, T. Geronimo Johnson received his MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and his M.A. from UC Berkeley. Welcome to Braggsville was longlisted for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, named one of the 10 books all Georgians should read by the Georgia Center for the Book, and won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. His first novel, Hold it 'til it Hurts, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He lives in Berkeley, CA.