I’ll tell you everything I can about this person who I have come to know as an abuser. What I’m doing, this is hard. There’s nothing in this for me. Trust me. I would love to believe that Aaron Hopkins-Johnson is not a shitbag. I would love for none of this to be true. I would love to not have to expose these horrifying stories, and I would love to not face the fact that some people will still refuse to believe our words, even though there are so many of us. Even though we have proof.
I’m scared to have my story read. I’m scared to have people pick apart my words. I can’t stop thinking, why didn’t I realize? Why didn’t I say something sooner?
I’m risking a lot by writing this. For one, I’m risking my safety. Below is my full story with enough details for the person to know very well who I am. I have come to understand that this person is dangerous. He could retaliate against me. I have no idea what he’s capable of, and I would sleep a lot easier at night if I had made the choice to stay silent.
I’m doing this because braver people have done it before me. I’m also doing this because I missed many chances to do the right thing and speak up against this person. The least I can do is say something now.
I met Aaron at one of his poetry events when I was 22. We were DMing not too long after that. One of his first DMs to me was asking me if I was at the event with my father. He says there was a man with my same last name. I said no, my dad lives out of state. I knew it was a lie at the time: nobody has my last name.
It’s only now that I’m thinking anything of this interaction and realizing that this was one of the patterns. At the time, he didn’t know anything about me so he was trying to figure me out. Was I a minor? Was I alone? Was I unprotected?
Looking back, almost every single thing Aaron told me was a complete lie. The entire time I knew Aaron, he was engaged in multiple inappropriate and even abusive relationships. In the beginning, I had no idea. But later on, there were signs.
I keep hearing people say that Aaron picks on girls who are easily manipulated. I don’t think that’s fair. I wouldn’t say I’m easily manipulated. I don’t really trust or have close relationships with men. I have a strong personality and I’m not easily pushed around. But did Aaron manipulate me? Absolutely.
Aaron was my slam coach and then eventually my part-time boss. For the first year or two I knew Aaron, he really seemed like a solid guy. He drove me and a van of kids to a slam competition in another state. I can only remember that trip as being fun. He coached us a bit and we won second place. I don’t think I saw any of the prize money, but I figured he had to pay for gas.
I guess I thought of Aaron as a father figure. This makes sense because Aaron would constantly refer to himself as a father figure. We had a group chat with other poets and we called him “Dad”. Looking back over my texts, at one point Aaron said he loved me as a daughter.
That made it all the more confusing when he tried to have sex with me.
It came out of nowhere. I was blindsided, shocked. He leaned into me at a bar. I can still feel his breath in my ear. And he said, “I want to put my tongue in your pussy.” This continued for a few minutes. I was frozen. I couldn’t move. He kept talking about the sexual things he wanted to do to me. I was in shock. I couldn’t speak. All I did was stand up and leave.
I didn’t go to the events for a few months. It broke my heart. That was my safe place, my community. I wanted to see my friends. I wanted to get up on stage. I just didn’t want to see him. It made me feel sick.
I wanted it erased. I wanted to pretend it never happened. Eventually, Aaron apologized. It seemed genuine.
When I say it came out of nowhere, I mean, it came out of nowhere. Aaron even admitted to me that I hadn’t flirted with him, hadn’t led him on, hadn’t given him any signals. I’m a lesbian. I’m a butch lesbian. When Aaron and I hung out together, I’d often be misgendered because people always thought I was a boy. I talked openly about being gay. I even brought around girls I was dating. Aaron knew I wasn’t interested in him, knew I wasn’t interested in men, probably knew that his assault would put me in an uncomfortable place: he did it anyway. And after he crossed that boundary, I had to decide whether to cut him off (and lose my entire community), or skate past it. I skated past it.
In the following years performing at the poetry slam, I noticed an awful pattern. A new girl would show up, perform for a few months, and then disappear off the face of the earth. Sometimes she would even stop writing completely. It took a while, but eventually I realized this pattern had to do with Aaron. He dated, slept with, or harassed so many of the young female writers that showed up to his events. When things went bad, he would sabotage them. Sometimes he would talk shit about their writing. Other times he would prevent them from performing. I didn’t realize until recently, but I think this sort of happened to me. After the assault, Aaron made things difficult for me at the slam. He would tell me I was performing and then “forget” to call me up on stage. Or he would invite me to events and give me the wrong time so that I showed up late and didn't get to perform. It was extremely frustrating. I realize now it was a lot of manipulation and gaslighting. In the year following the assault, I thought about dropping out of events many times. But I didn’t. I was stubborn. I didn’t realize it at the time, but after I rejected him, he probably just wanted me to disappear. I wasn’t of use to him anymore.
I continued to be involved in the slam and to consider Aaron one of my good friends. Slowly I learned things about Aaron that made me uncomfortable. Looking back, there were so many signs. But I was in too deep. For one, he dated a girl from the slam that was so much younger than him. He had a girlfriend at the time. The relationship, to me, seemed really wrong. After that ended, she stopped coming around. He also dated a friend of mine and got really shitty towards her after they ended. She stopped performing. I think she even stopped writing. I knew he had something to do with it. It made me angry.
At one point, Aaron confided in me that he was “canceled” a few years ago due to allegations pertaining to him and young female employees. He talked about messed up power dynamics and seemed genuinely remorseful. He said stuff like, “I’ve learned my lesson, and I’ll never do that again.” I believed him.
Stupidly, I never researched the victims or the allegations. I believed everything Aaron said. He told me, on several occasions, that his ex-girlfriends were crazy. He claimed several exes had stalked and gaslit him and broken into his house. Oh, the irony. That part I never really bought. He talked about his gang of “haters”. Looking back over our conversations, his bizarre confessions were littered with the most absurd lies. He claimed, at one point, that he had only had two girlfriends. Not true. He claimed that he had only lived with three women. Not true. He claimed, at one point, that he hadn’t had sex in years. Ha!
When Aaron told me he was reopening the bookstore, I was thrilled. I immediately wanted to be involved. I even donated a good amount of money to his GoFundMe. That was stupid of me. I was so sure that this was going to be an amazing community space that I was going to be a part of. And I was.
I was unemployed for a few months during covid, and I was losing my mind. Aaron offered to have me “volunteer” at the bookstore. He said he couldn’t afford to pay me quite yet, but he could pay me soon. Later, I learned these were the exact same lines he told volunteers years ago when his first bookstore opened.
Honestly, I loved it. I loved working at the bookstore, even unpaid. He was a great “boss” at first, and the job was fun. He had me make jewelry and coffee and help list books online. Not only was I happy to work unpaid, I was also happy to make art for him to sell and to donate hundreds of books to the store. I just wanted to help. I wanted so badly for him to hire me, officially, once he could, so I went above and beyond. I cleaned constantly-- the place was filthy-- and tried to make the place nicer. At one point I asked him to buy me maybe $20 worth of cleaning supplies and he refused. I stopped cleaning after that.
In early 2021, Aaron offered to hire me officially for minimum wage. I was thrilled. He had me log my hours on a spreadsheet for the first month and then put me on a payroll app. I filled out a W2 and clocked in and out.
The biggest red flag that I can’t forgive myself for brushing off was Aaron’s first hire. He said a girl had applied to work for him, and she seemed like a good fit for the job. When she showed up, I couldn’t believe how young she was. I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach. They disappeared for an interview, then he came back half an hour later looking thrilled. “She’s perfect!” he said.
Looking back, the whole thing was messed up from the start. Aaron had told me himself he’d been “cancelled” for allegations concerning young female employees, he had learned his lesson and he’d never do something like that again. And here he was hiring a minor.
Around the same time, he hired another teenage girl. This one was in college. He also hired two men and an adult woman. I found it odd that he was hiring so many people since not too long ago, I had expressed my interest in picking up more shifts and Aaron had said he couldn’t afford it. And more alarmingly, a few months after my “hire” date, I had only received one actual paycheck. I hadn’t realized, at the time, how much money he actually owed me, but I knew I wasn’t getting paid on time. And if he couldn’t afford to pay me, why was he hiring more people?
After hiring more people, Aaron’s behavior towards me became more contentious. He would be mad if I was late for a shift even though I opened for him and he never gave me a key so I would usually start late even if I showed up early. He would brag about how many sales the teen girls made and how they made way more tips than me. He would gripe about how few sales I made and act like I’d done something great if I made a lot of sales during my shift. Really, it had nothing to do with me and had more to do with if there was an event going on nearby and people were coming into the store. Or if the door was open (he usually insisted on it being closed). Stupidly, I let his illogical criticisms upset me. I did want the store to do well, which is why I made a lot of suggestions for how we could make more money. People came in asking for the same few items every day, so I suggested that we start selling them. He said no. Certain items were hard to keep on the shelves, so I suggested we raise the pricing. He said no. I suggested we keep track of sales to keep tabs on which items were selling. He said no. Eventually, it became clear that not only did he disregard my suggestions, but they actually made them angry. Sometimes it seemed like the man honestly didn’t want to make money. Or at least, he was fine with turning a profit off of unpaid labor and illegal scams and crowdfunding, but when it came to making money off of running a business, he was allergic.
Back to the teenage girls, and all the red flags I stupidly ignored. He talked about them constantly. He was interested in their lives and their taste in music. Most alarmingly, he was interested in their friends. Their teenage friends. He even threw them a party at Lawn Gnome. I have to admit, I didn’t find it weird at the time. He told me the party theme was one of the girl’s ideas, when it actually wasn’t. The concept of the party was so cute and I thought he was just being...like...a dad. I didn’t think of it as a chance for him to interact with more teenage girls. Which, of course, it was.
One of the teenage girls worked the shift after mine. Whenever she showed up for her shift, Aaron would come out and sit with us and we’d talk for ten minutes or so. What I didn’t know at the time was that after I left, Aaron didn’t go back to his apartment to hang out with his kid or run errands. He was there, alone, with the teenage girl. Every. Damn. Time.
It wasn’t until my last month or so that I started to feel really uncomfortable with the situation. He acted so normal around her when I was there. Again, like a dad. He talked about women in their 30s that he was interested in or dating. I caught him looking at her in some kind of way just once. After that, I planned on asking her if everything was OK with Aaron and he had done anything to make her uncomfortable. I was way too late. She quit not too long after that and I didn’t see her again.
Later, I learned things that made me sick to my stomach. For one, I learned that Aaron had told her all kinds of lies about me. He said he met me when I was 17. I met him after college. He told her that he and I had gone on “camping trips”. I have never gone on a trip alone with Aaron. He told her I had hung out with him and his kid in the apartment. Not true-- I’d never even been behind the shop. All of this was so clearly an attempt to normalize an inappropriate relationship.
And of course, that wasn’t even the worst of it. But that was the role I unwittingly played in Aaron’s abusive behavior towards a minor. And even though those stories weren’t true, I still feel so guilty. My coworker knew I looked up to Aaron. I adored Aaron. I shouldn’t have. All the people that surrounded Aaron and supported him even though he had allegations and openly displayed abusive behavior gave him power. And he used that power to prey on minors. I wish I could go back in time and be the person that immediately believes victims. Or the person that immediately recognizes misogyny and abuse. Maybe then, fewer people would have been hurt.
So much happened in my last month at Lawn Gnome. The two teens quit. That was alarming. Aaron told me he had been struggling to pay people on time and couldn’t afford to hire more people. Then, a week before I quit, I came in and saw a new girl working. A very young girl. I was shocked. I was honestly horrified. Aaron’s behavior became even more abusive towards me. If I had stayed, I can only imagine how bad things would have gotten. A few of the performers caught wind that Aaron had been inappropriate with teenagers. We didn’t know much at the time, but it was enough to make us all immediately step down. It was devastating. We all loved the slam, but there had been questionable stuff going on around Aaron for a long time. And it was obviously way too much for us to brush off at this point.
Long before I made the decision to quit and distance myself from Aaron and Lawn Gnome Publishing, I had met plenty of people who disliked him or refused to do business with him. Some of these people didn’t even know about the sex abuse scandals. He had a reputation for stealing and ripping people off. I was around Aaron for long enough to know that these allegations were probably true. But stupidly, I never thought it would happen to me.
It wasn’t until a week or two after I quit that I sat down and tried to figure out how much money Aaron actually owed me. I had been procrastinating this for a reason: it was devastating. In the entire five months since my “hire date”, I had only received two paychecks. Not only that, but those paychecks were incomplete. My payroll app didn’t even reflect how much money Aaron owed me because he had edited my hours to make it look like I had worked less than I had. Even though I had only worked 5 and 7 hour shifts, there were many days when the payroll app showed that I had only worked 3 hours. There were entire days I had worked that were not even logged-- he must have deleted them. All those hours I had logged on the spreadsheet before we started payroll? I hadn’t been paid for any of those. When I confronted Aaron about it, he eventually paid me about a thousand dollars. He still owes me a lot. One of the things that kills me is that Aaron has never had a problem finding young people who are willing to work for free. I would have worked for free. I did work for free. But he offered to pay me. He had me fill out W2s. And then he wouldn’t even pay me for the hours that I worked.
Pedophilia is where a lot of people draw the line. So maybe this statement could have been a lot shorter and I could have just said that yes, I can confirm that Aaron has/does/will target children to groom and exploit. And for anyone with a sense of decency, that would be enough to decide to stop supporting him. But it feels important for me to include the other information. Why? I don’t know...for the victims? For myself? For other people, moving forward, who might need the words to call out abuse in the arts community? Power is a frightening thing. I’m sure this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. And I’m sure it won’t be the last. So I’m going to be thorough and talk about how this person, who artists adored and admired and loved, abused power and hid in plain sight. I want to talk about how he targeted women. And artists. And queer people.
Aaron Johnson has truly been successfully maintaining a platform and a space for years that is unsafe for women and non-men. I’ve seen it happen for years: talented writers show up and find a wonderful space with like-minded community. Often when they’re on the stage they’re at their most vulnerable: opening up about their trauma, their survival, their hard-won empowerment, their ambition to make something of themselves and their art. And tragically, they’re targeted in the very place they’re supposed to feel safe. Aaron is a great fake ally because he’ll be the first to tell you that women don’t get a fair chance in slam. It’s very rare for women in slam to win or even place. But women at Aaron’s slam don’t get a fair chance because the person who is in charge of running the damn thing doesn’t treat them like artists or performers or writers. Instead, he sexualizes them and uses his platform to mistreat them when he doesn’t get what he wants.
I do want to mention that Aaron targets queer people. It hurts me a lot to realize that he’s been abusive towards my community. When I spoke out about Aaron’s sexual harassment, some people didn’t believe me because I don’t seem like Aaron’s “type”. I’m not feminine and I look like a boy, so a lot of people don’t believe that a man would be interested in me, let alone harass or assault me. This is exactly what happened last time I dealt with a bad situation with a man. Listen, man, predators don’t have a “type”. And I can think of a lot of reasons why an abusive person would target queer people. For one, we’re less likely to be believed. Second, we’re less likely to have a good support system. Aaron’s father figure shit really did a number on me because I don’t have a great relationship with my family. A lot of queer people don’t. And third, it’s another boundary. I can’t even describe how fucking violated I feel when a man hits on me. Not only do I not want a relationship with a man old enough to be my father, I don’t want a relationship with a man, period. I’ve done so much in my life to make it publicly clear that I’m not interested in a romantic or sexual relationship with a man. Crossing that boundary with me isn’t just inappropriate: it’s an act of violence. And I know for the fact that I’m not the first queer person Aaron has done this to. Sadly, I’m not even the second or the third. I’ve also witnessed how he disregards and disrespects the queer community at large. And it’s even more heart-breaking because well...poetry spaces are queer spaces. How do I put it nicely? Gay people fucking built this shit. We have every right to be here, and at the very least, for it to be a safe space.
Finally, let me acknowledge that Aaron targets artists. He’s built a platform that attracts incredibly talented people who deserve to be seen and heard. And he has this horrible obsession with profiting off of people’s talents and not paying them for their work. Artists will agree to work for free, but that doesn’t mean that it’s right. And it’s a blurry line between giving people a platform and taking advantage, but I will attest that I watched Aaron cross that line so many times. I put my foot down at deception. At promising to pay people for their art and never following through. And it’s heartbreaking to realize how many people have been hurt by this behavior. And the kind of people he’s hurting. It’s people who are doing their best to make ends meet, and they really don’t expect this person who seems to care so much about their community to be this fucking unethical.
All this to say, if you’re an artist or a queer person or a woman in phoenix and you’re reading this, you may feel a little bruised right now. But I want to share something I’ve learned that has made this whole shift a little bit easier. It is totally possible to build a place that is safer and better for our community. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. For some of us, it was hard to walk away. But we’re going to be better. I promise you, we’re going to be better.
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