Today on Fresh Air, Terry Gross talks with the University of Arizona’s Fenton Johnson who wrote the cover story for the April edition of Harper's Magazine. It's about his twenty years of living alone, in solitude. In the article "Opulence in Solitude: the Dignity & Challenge of Being Alone," Johnson describes his experience of solitude as a secular approach to what he saw the Monks doing nearby when he was growing up.
Johnson is the author of two novels and the memoirs "Geography of the Heart: A Memoir," and "Keeping Faith: A Skeptic's Journey among Christian & Buddist Monks." Johnson is on faculty at the creative writing program of the University of Arizona.
Fresh Air airs today at 1 p.m. on NPR 89.1