Jodi’s latest book:
Back Roads, Dead Cats & What’s for Dinner
ROUTE 66 CENTENNIAL EDITION COMING 6-6-26
Travel back in time along the old Arizona and New Mexico railways and highways. Adventure into times of good food, hair-raising tales and grand misadventures.
Here are long-ago stories, vintage photographs and more than 50 old school recipes from a colorful family. Feed your hunger and your love for the American Southwest.
Celebrate your own family’s history, food and journeys with engaging and informative activities included in the Second Edition.
Jodi Johnson:
Author, Storyteller, Traveller, Cook, and Teacher
Jodi Marie Johnson’s family has lived in Arizona for seven generations. She lives and writes from a western spirit. Jodi grew up exploring the deserts, mountains, canyons and creeks of her beloved Arizona.
She has traveled around the world exploring native cultures, foods and wild places, yet she returns always to the light-drenched Southwest she calls home.
Jodi actively volunteers in underserved communities and supports conservation of the natural ecosystems of the West. She teaches ancestral healing classes, provides trauma resolution therapies, and writes from her native Arizona. Jodi’s stories have appeared in local and regional publications'.
She brings her love of old places and things, cooking and sharing with her family and friends to her storytelling.
“What is writing but an expression of my own life?” — Zane Grey
What people are saying…
“In a modern world that seems so often to be cold and flavorless, ‘Back Roads, Dead Cats and What’s for Dinner’ is a plentiful serving of scrumptious warmth.”
–Mary Sojourner, author of Going through Ghosts, Bonelight and NPR commentator
“... a tapestry of Arizona days we all long for. Her stories are woven with a blend of spirit, at once pioneering and precocious, that transcends local history and folklore.”
–Charles Seiverd, Publisher, The Noise, Arts and News Magazine
