Saint Joseph CHS alumnus to speak on his book about the experience of craniosynostosis

Friday, Feb. 06, 2015

OGDEN — Kase Johnstun, Saint Joseph Catholic High School Class of 1994 and author of Beyond the Grip of Craniosynostosis: An Inside View of Life Touched by the Congenital Skull Deformity, will give a reading Feb. 19. 

SJCHS launched the Aquinas Institute last year with the idea “that there are a lot of social justice topics that we can discuss in a progressive, lively forum,” said Joanna Wheelton, St. Joseph Catholic Schools president. “We love the idea of highlighting local authors and artists through the Aquinas Institute, and this is a very fascinating book. It is written utilizing different threads of storytelling: medical, anthropological, social, and the fact that Johnstun is an alumnus adds another dimension.”

Johnstun is happy the book will launch at his alma mater, he said. 

“Everything feels like it is the way it is supposed to be,” he said. “All my friends, family and mentors from St. Joe and Weber State will be there; it’s truly amazing, we’re so excited. I, of course, said we, because this wouldn’t have happened without [my wife,] Mary.”

Johnstun’s presentation will be both a memoir and a medical study; his work explores craniosynostosis, the premature fusing of the cranial sutures in infants, in which one or more of the joints between the bones of the baby’s skull close prematurely before the brain is fully formed. 

In addition to the reading, Johnstun will discuss his research and his experience as an editor and author. 

He was born with craniosynostosis. The nurse in the delivery room inappropriately and incorrectly told his sobbing mother that he would be developmentally delayed, he said, adding that he had surgery when he was 8 weeks old. “This type of diagnosis happens more often than you’d think,” said Johnstun.

After he was grown, married, and he and his wife were expecting their first child, he realized this birth defect could be passed on and began to research it, he said. 

Medical texts and memoirs were available, but there wasn’t a book that brought the two together, so Johnstun wrote one that did. In the process, he interviewed families across the United States and chronicles their struggles. 

“What gives the book appeal is that it’s a mother’s story,” Johnstun said. “Whenever I would talk about my research, my mom would cry and she would avoid certain details. She was my last interview, and she finally told me I almost died. I was a baby, so I don’t have much of a story. It’s really her story.”

An award-winning essayist, author and editor, Johnstun has had work published nationally and internationally in journals and magazines. He became a writing lecturer at Utah State University in 2014. He recently edited Utah Reflections: Stories from the Wasatch Front with Sherri Hoffman and Mary Johnstun.

From 2002 to 2004 his column “Coming of Age” was published in the Intermountain Catholic. He left the newspaper to become a book editor, wanting to work in sports, he said; at the time, he doubted he would return to Utah.

After working for the Tacoma Rainiers Triple-A baseball team, he gave up his dream of sports and taught at several community colleges and realized he “loved teaching,” he said.

In 2011 he received a Master’s of Fine Arts in creative writing from Pacific University in Oregon. “I honestly don’t think I took myself seriously as a writer until then,” he said. “It humbled me. I realized I want to write and teach for the rest of my life.” 

Johnstun was a full-time faculty member at Kansas State from 2012-2013 before returning to Utah. 

“I would never have seen our life turning out this way, because I was destined never to return to Utah, but we came back with fresh eyes,” he said.

To learn more about Johnstun, visit http://kasejohnstun.blogspot.com or on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/KaseDJohnstun.

What: Aquinas Institute

Speaker: Kase Johnstun, author

When: Feb. 19, 7 p.m.  

Where: St. Joseph CHS’s Black Box Theatre, 1790 Lake St., Ogden 

To learn more about Johnstun, visit his blog, http://kasejohnstun.blogspot.com or Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/KaseDJohnstun.