Sally J. Johnson is a poet, lyric essayist, collage enthusiast, and public educator. She was a 2016 Fellow at the Lambda Literary Writer's Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices and a finalist for the 2016 Black Warrior Review Contest for Nonfiction. The winner of the 2015 Poetry International Prize judged by Carol Frost, she was also a finalist for Sycamore Review's Wabash Prize in Nonfiction, and winner of Madison Review's 2015 Phyllis Smart-Young Prize for Poetry. You can read more of her work in places like Sideareal Magazine, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Collagist, Bodega, Whiskey Island, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. Sally received her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where she served as Managing Editor for the award-winning literary journal Ecotone. 

Sally lives with her husband and two dogs in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. After receiving her Masters in the Art of Teaching from the University of Chicago, she began her work as a public elementary school teacher in 2020. 


*She/Her/Hers