Alaya Dawn Johnson

Apart from short fiction, Johnson has published two urban fantasy novels about "vampire suffragette" Zephyr Hollis set in an alternate 1920s New York City,^[3] and two novels set on islands resembling pre-modern Polynesia where people have learned to bind elemental powers to their commands.^[4][5]

Her 2013 debut in the young adult fiction sector, the standalone novel The Summer Prince, is set on a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk Brazilian arcology ruled by a nanotech-empowered matriarchy.^[6][7] Love Is the Drug, her 2014 standalone young adult novel, is set in Washington, D.C., and follows a prep-school student whose memory loss may be connected to a burgeoning global influenza pandemic.^[8][9]

In February 2021 Johnson was the literary guest of honor and keynote speaker at the 39th annual Life, the Universe, & Everything professional science fiction and fantasy arts symposium.^[10]

Johnson was born in Washington, D.C.^[1] She graduated from Columbia University in 2004 with a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Languages and Cultures.^[11][12]

Johnson lived in New York City^[11] until 2014, when she moved to Mexico City.^[13] She received a master's degree in Mesoamerican studies from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México for her thesis on fermented food and its ritual symbolism in pre-Columbian Mexico.^[14]

• World Fantasy Awards Winner, Best Novel for Trouble the Saints, 2021^[15]
• Andre Norton Award Winner, Best Young Adult Novel for Love Is the Drug, 2015^[16]
• Nebula Award Winner, Best Novelette for A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i, 2015^[16]
• Nebula Award Nominee, Best Novelette for They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass, 2013^[17]
• Andre Norton Award Nominee for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy for The Summer Prince, 2013^[17]
• National Book Award Longlist, Young People's Literature for The Summer Prince, 2013^[18]
• GLBTRT Top Ten Rainbow List for The Summer Prince, 2014^[19]
• Junior Library Guild selection for The Summer Prince, Spring 2013^[20]
• YALSA nominee for their BFYA list for The Summer Prince, 2013^[20]
• Finalist for the 2011 Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award for the novel Moonshine^[20]
• Finalist for the 2011 Carl Brandon Society Kindred Award for the novel The Burning City^[20]
• Top Ten finalist for the 2010 Million Writers Award for the short story A Song to Greet the Sun^[20]
• Winner of the 2008 Gulliver Travel Grant from the Speculative Literature Foundation^[20]
• Finalist for the 2006 Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award for the short story Shard of Glass^[20]

• —— (2013). The Summer Prince (hardcover 1st ed.). Arthur A. Levine Books. p. 289. ISBN 978-0545417792.
• —— (2014). Love Is the Drug (hardcover 1st ed.). Arthur A. Levine Books. p. 344. ISBN 978-0545417815.
• —— (2020). Trouble the Saints (hardcover 1st ed.). Tor Books. p. 352. ISBN 978-1250175342.
• —— (2023). The Library of Broken Worlds (hardcover 1st ed.). Scholastic Press. p. 448. ISBN 978-1338290622.

1. —— (2007). Racing the Dark (hardcover 2008 ed.). Agate Bolden. p. 368. ISBN 978-1932841282.
2. —— (2010). The Burning City (paperback ed.). Agate Bolden. p. 380. ISBN 978-1932841459.

1. —— (2010). Moonshine (paperback ed.). Griffin. p. 278. ISBN 9780312648060.
2. —— (2012). Wicked City (hardcover 1st ed.). Thomas Dunne Books. p. 306. ISBN 978-0312565480.
3. —— (2012). The Inconstant Moon (ebook ed.). Tor Books. p. 32. ISBN 978-1466820821. Quick story, published in ebook and webzine format.

• —— (2020). Reconstruction (paperback ed.). Small Beer Press. p. 271. ISBN 978-1618731777. Includes 10 short stories:
  1. "A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i"
  2. "Their Changing Bodies"
  3. "They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass"
  4. "Down the Well"
  5. "Third Day Lights"
  6. "The Score"
  7. "Far and Deep"
  8. "The Mirages"
  9. "Reconstruction"
  10. "A Song to Greet the Sun"

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alaya Johnson.

• Official website  
• Alaya Dawn Johnson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database