Timothy Johnson is a writer and editor living outside Washington, D.C., where he recently earned an MFA in creative writing from George Mason University. His published writing includes the novels The Pillars of Dawn and Carrier as well as short fiction from Gamut, Deracine Magazine, Crystal Lake Publishing, and Inked in Gray Press. He was editor-in-chief of phoebe journal, and in 2021, he was an Alan Cheuse Center Fellow and a Pushcart Award nominee for his story, “I Am Emergent.”
Timothy often writes speculative fiction, usually science fiction and horror. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association. Nothing frightens him more than the future, so he writes about it and hopes he is wrong.
Timothy tells stories about love and the terrible lengths we will go to protect it, belief in the absence of reason, how environmental conflict twists us as we twist it, how we define family and form tribes, the need for us to create legacy in the face of cosmic indifference, the isolation of human perception, the nature of American kindness as well as its cruelty, and the rise of demagoguery and authoritarianism in western politics and culture.
People fascinate and confound him, so he writes stories in an effort to understand them.
He also firmly believes storytelling should be fun and emotionally moving, that we should be able to connect with them on a deeply human level and remember them for the way they make us feel, whether that is thoughtful, inspired, shaken, or energized.
You can occasionally find him posting keen observations of human behavior, revelations that are probably obvious to everyone else, dad jokes despite not being a father, and truly awful puns on Twitter. He also is on Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, and Mastodon, but he considers his social media presence a work in progress. There’s also a newsletter you can sign up for that comes out … sometimes.
Wherever you find him, he loves to connect with other people who are passionate about storytelling, because he believes community and the sharing of stories is what gives it purpose.