Amanda Johnston

Amanda Johnston is a writer, visual artist, and the 61st Poet Laureate of Texas. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, as well as the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter. She is also the editor of the anthology Praisesong for the People: Poems from the Heart and Soul of Texas. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them Callaloo, Poetry Magazine, The Moth Radio Hour, Bill Moyers, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships, grants, and awards from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, Tasajillo, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Watermill Center, American Short Fiction, and the Academy of American Poets. She is a former Board President of the Cave Canem Foundation and the founder of Torch Literary Arts.