We’re celebrating the 2026 Kirkus Indie Awards with SFF winner C.W. Johnson.

This special episode of Fully Booked honors the winners of the inaugural Kirkus Indie Awards. The awards recognize the excellence, breadth, and depth of independently published books in eight categories: history and biography, memoir, literary fiction, mystery and thriller, science fiction and fantasy, romance, picture books, and children’s literature.

On this episode, we’re joined in celebration by science fiction and fantasy winner C.W. Johnson to discuss A Life Full of Quarks(Baryon Dreams Press, 2024), a rip-roaring, science-minded bildungsroman. Johnson is a professor of physics at San Diego State University who has published more than a dozen short stories in science fiction magazines, including Analog and Asimov’s, as well as more than two dozen poems. A Life Full of Quarks is his first novel.

“In Johnson’s novel, a brilliant physicist tries to build a life after narrowly surviving a childhood filled with reanimated dinosaurs, runaway aliens, and mutated Mexican beaded lizards,” Kirkus writes in a starred review of A Life Full of Quarks, calling it “heartbreaking and hilarious.”

Here’s a bit more from our starred review: “It’s impossible to accurately convey the off-the-wall lunacy comprising the first act, but suffice it to say that it chronicles young John’s many adventures before the irrevocable rift between his parents leads to the ultimate dissolution of the family.…This fantastical ‘memoir’ following protagonist John’s attempts to navigate academic life (‘“Never fear blood” was in fact the school sports motto’) after growing up a curious kid in an even curiouser family is a true work of literary alchemy. Packed with deep pathos and unrelenting dark humor, the novel delves deeply into questions about the true nature of love in all its mysterious—and quite possibly mystical—components.”

In an intriguing conversation, Johnson shares his surprise at being named an Indie Award winner. We talk science fiction, his day job as a university professor, quarks, scientific language, and A Confederacy of Dunces. He shares why he decided to publish independently, creative control, reader responses, his literary influences, and much more.

At the end of our interview, Johnson recommends a book by a famous Italian novelist and short story writer. Follow @kirkus_reviews on Instagram, DM us the title of that book, along with your email and location, and you’ll be entered in a drawing to receive a $100 Visa gift card, courtesy of Kirkus. The giveaway is open to legal residents of the U.S. who have reached 18 years of age or older at the time of entry.

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

The Inner Compass by S.J. King

Born Sick in the USA by Stephen Bezruchka

Good Lookin’ by T.L. Bequette

The Conclusion of the American Experiment by Jonathan P. Morrow

Adams Morgan Fugue by Alex Fardon

Fully Booked is produced by Jessica Lockhart and Megan Labrise.