Allison Johnson's Biography

My grandmother was a storyteller. She told me bedtime stories about her travels around the world, especially about her months in Japan. Mema is gone now, but I'll never forget her tale about the little girl rescued from a sinking ship, how she stood on the deck and ducked a falling timber.

My father was a screenwriter and a voracious reader who shared with me a love of words. He showed me how to work hard and never give up. I grew up in Tarzana, a suburb of Los Angeles, near our beautiful deserts that feed my soul and my writing.

The Way Home, (Five Star, 2001), set in Palm Springs, is the story of a woman forced to confront her broken relationship with her aging father.

Your Self-Confident Baby (John Wiley & Sons, 1997), co-authored with Magda Gerber, translated into Spanish, German, and Czech, was featured in O: The Oprah Magazine.

My essays have been published in The Los Angeles Times , Los Angeles Times Magazine and Orange Coast magazine. I'm a contributor to desertusa.com. and the anthology Cup of Comfort for Cat Lovers (Adams Media).

My short stories were performed at the New Short Fiction Series in Los Angeles and at the Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica, California. My short story, "The Winter Season," placed me as a finalist for the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award. In 2007 I was awarded a scholarship to the Backspace Writers Conference.