Adam Peter Johnson lives in Minnesota with his wife, son and golden basset. He's drawn to science fiction stories that serve as funhouse mirrors for everyday life and hopefully illuminate some underlying truth. Every time travel story is really a story about regret. Every dystopian tale is really about the here and now.

Adam worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for a decade, in the U.S. and Australia. He's been writing all his life but was moved to publish Branches following the sudden death of his mother in 2018. At once a dystopian alternate history story filled with twists and a personal, character-driven drama, the novel is about reflecting on the choices you've made while the world around you feels like it's spinning out of control—a feeling that, unfortunately, many people can relate to right now.

Authors that Adam credits as influences on his writing include Ray Bradbury, Flannery O'Connor, George Saunders, Chuck Palahniuk and Ted Chiang.

Learn more and sign up to receive updates about upcoming releases at adampeterjohnson.net.

ON WRITING BRANCHES:

Under normal circumstances, stories about parallel worlds are an opportunity for fun “what-if” riffs that let readers safely visit fantastical dystopias where familiar events played out differently. The Nazis won World War II and now we all speak German and Darth Vader's the hero in Star Wars, etc. etc.

But, to put it lightly, these are not normal circumstances. How are we supposed to enjoy these stories when reality itself has descended into the kind of dystopia we'd never have believed a few short years ago?

If you were given the opportunity to leave in favor of a different reality—right now, today—would you take it? The question no longer feels so abstract. And if you did leave, what might you find on the other side?

If the pandemic had never happened, would things be better . . . or worse?