Record

Code	DS/UK/102
Person Name	Johnson; Diane (1934-); Writer, Teacher
Dates	1934-
Dates and Places	1934: Born in Illinois 1965: published first novel, Fair Game 1977-78: Guggenheim Fellow 1980: co-wrote first screenplay of The Shining with Stanley Kubrick 1979: Became apart of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters 1987: Earned the Strauss Living award 1994: Earned the Los Angeles Times medal 2003: Wrote second screenplay for Le Divorce
History	Diane Johnson was born in Moline, Illinois in 1934. She first attended Stephens College where she began to write. During her sophomore year, she was accepted as one of twenty women to be guest editors at Mademoiselle, a fashion magazine based in New York City. She continued her education at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City (receiving her B.A. in 1957), UCLA (receiving an M.A. in 1966 and a Ph.D. in English in 1968). She taught at UC Davis from 1968 to 1987. While teaching a course about the Gothic novel, Stanley Kubrick reached out to consult turning her 1974 novel The Shadow Knows into a film. He and Johnson eventually decided to collaborate on turning Stephen King’s novel The Shining into a film, Johnson and Kubrick both turning a “baroque” novel into a “radically simple” screenplay. Although having worked on several screenplays further in her career (including working with Mike Nichols and Francis Ford Coppola, none of which came to fruition), Johnson primarily worked on novel writing. Her fictional work largely revolves around women and romance, whereas her non-fiction ranges from biographies to her own life growing up in the midwest. Johnson has been a finalist for the National Book Awards and the Pulitzer Prize multiple times, has won the California Book Award. In her career she has also been a Guggenheim Fellow (1977) and is a member of the American Academy and the Institute of Arts and Letters. She continues to write and currently divides her time living between San Francisco and Paris.
Activity	Fiction: Fair Game (1965) Loving Hands at Home (1968) Burning (1971) Lesser Lives (1972) The Shadow Knows (1974) Lying Low (1978) Persian Nights (1987) Health and Happiness (1990) Le Divorce (1997) Le Mariage (2000) L’Affaire (2003) Lulu in Marrakesh (2008) Lorna Mott Comes Home (2021) Non-Fiction: The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives (1972) Edwin Broun Fred (1974) Dashiell Hammett: A Life (1983) Natural Opium: Some Traveler’s Tales (1993) Philip Trager: Changing Paris (2001) American Symbolist Art (2004) Flyover Lives: A Memoir (2014) Screenplays: The Shining (1980) Le Divorce (2003) Essay Collections: Terrorists and Novelists: Essays (1982) Into a Paris Quartier (2005)
Relationships	Stanley Kubrick, collaborator
Source	Kolker, Robert P., and Nathan Abrams. “How Stanley Kubrick Brought Stephen King’s The Shining to the Big Screen.” Literary Hub, February 8, 2024. https://lithub.com/how-stanley-kubrick-brought-stephen-kings-the-shining-to-the-big-screen/.
	Steensland, Mark. “The Shining Adapted: An Interview with Diane Johnson \| the Terror Trap.” The Shining Adapted, May 2011. http://www.terrortrap.com/interviews/dianejohnson/.
	Kidder, Tracy. “The Writing Life.” The Washington Post, September 4, 1993. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1993/09/05/the-writing-life/34ab4838-3ef1-4916-86f7-88d3a44abbe1/.
	Goldstein, Bill. “An Interview with Diane Johnson.” Audio Interview: Diane Johnson, March 7, 2000. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/04/16/specials/johnson-audio.html?amp=&amp=&scp=159&sq=book+review+%22march+7%22&st=cse.
	Testino, Mario, and Diane Johnson. “Vogue Contributors: Mario Testino/Diane Johnson.” Vogue Magazine Archives, September 2003. https://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/mario-testino-vogue-archive.
	Britannica Editors. "Diane Johnson." Encyclopedia Britannica, April 24, 2026. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Diane-Johnson.
	“Diane Johnson Books in Order.” Add All. Accessed July 24, 2026. https://www.addall.com/books-in-order/diane-johnson/. (this was just used to get an idea of which books were hers)
	Johnson, Diane. Natural Opium: Some Travelers’ Tales. New York, New York: A.A. Knopf, 1993, https://archive.org/details/naturalopiumsome00john/page/n8/mode/1up.
	“Diane Johnson Biography - Life, Family, Childhood, Children, Parents, Story, History, Wife, School, Mother - Newsmakers Cumulation.” Encyclopedia World of Biography. Accessed July 26, 2026. https://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2004-Di-Ko/Johnson-Diane.html.