Alaya Dawn Johnson

rhymes with papaya

Award-winning speculative fiction

Alaya Dawn Johnson is an award-winning author of speculative fiction for adults and young adults. Her most recent novel, Trouble the Saints, was published by Tor in July 2020. Her short story collection, Reconstruction, was published by Small Beer Press in January 2021.

Check out her brand-new Substack here, where you will receive a once-monthly long-form essay (writing advice, observations of an immigrant in Mexico, maybe even a little fiction), regular Q&A features with subscribers,  and, of course, the latest news of her publications.

Reconstruction

Cover of my short story collection Reconstruction

In Reconstruction award-winning writer and musician Johnson digs into the lives of those trodden underfoot by the powers that be: from the lives of vampires and those caught in their circle in Hawai’i to a taxonomy of anger put together by Union soldiers in the American Civil War, these stories will grab you and not let you go.

View Book

Trouble the Saints

Cover for Trouble the Saints with two women mirrored like on a playing card

The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in this timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City at the dawn of WWII. Amidst the whir of city life, a girl from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she’s hired to […]

View Book

Love Is the Drug

Cover of Love Is the Drug featuring a blue background a biohazard sign and large handwritten text

Winner of the Nebula award for Best Young Adult Novel Meet Bird: Emily Bird, the straight-A student with good hair and a perfect boyfriend, with a perfect Ivy-League future laid out in front of her. But a chance meeting with a government agent — at what should have been an ordinary party of Washington DC’s […]

View Book

The Summer Prince

The cover of The Summer Prince featuring the back of a girl with her arm covered in a light tattoo

Longlisted for the National Book Award and nominated for the Nebula award for best Young Adult novel, the Indie’s Choice Award and winner of the Cybils award Four hundred years in the future, in a world remade by plague and nuclear disaster, a young artist and a Summer King plot revolutionary art in the pyramid […]

View Book

Reconstruction: stories is out!

My first short story collection just pubbed this month from the inimitable Small Beer Press. I'm delighted to finally have a collection of my best work from the last decade, including two new short stories (one of which is the title story). Available now from wherever books are sold (and if you can help out your local independent book store, even better!) … Read More... about Reconstruction: stories is out!

“Johnson’s secret history is a nuanced portrait of racism in all of its poisonous flavors, brutally overt and unsuccessfully covert. She explores … the incredibly fraught, liminal space of being a light-skinned person of color. In musical prose, she also offers passionate and painful depictions of the love expressed in romance and friendship and the sacrifices such love can demand.

A sad, lovely, and blood-soaked song of a book.” — Kirkus, starred review for Trouble the Saints

“Johnson […] immerses readers in the complexities of Bird’s world, especially her fraught relationship with her parents and the intersections of race and class at her elite prep school. The often lyrical third-person, present-tense narration, the compelling romance and the richly developed cast of characters elevate this novel far above more formulaic suspense fare. Utterly absorbing.”—Kirkus, starred Review for Love Is the Drug

“Like leaping into cold water on a hot day, this original dystopian novel takes the breath away, refreshes, challenges, and leaves the reader shivering but yearning for another plunge.” — Booklist, starred review for The Summer Prince

“As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that this is a dystopia with no distinct enemy, just people fighting for what they truly see to be the right path for their community. Romantic, imaginative, and thought provoking, this is a must have for science-fiction fans and dystopia fiends.”—Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books on The Summer Prince

About me

Photo of Alaya Dawn Johnson

Alaya Dawn Johnson was born in Washington, DC in 1982, the first of three children. Both sides of her family have extensive ties to the DC metropolitan area. Her maternal grandfather bought the family home in southeast DC in the 1930s and raised ten children there as one of the first generation of African American government employees. Her father grew up in Lawrenceville, Virginia. Johnson attended high school at the National Cathedral School for girls and college at Columbia University, where she majored in East Asian Languages and Cultures. While studying abroad Japan, she hitchhiked … Read more about About