Rachael Johnson is a disabled, neurodivergent, androgynous-gender-fluid Diné writer/poet/photographer/artist from the Navajo Nation. She belongs to Táchii’nii, the Red Running into the Water people, and is born for Kinyaa’áanii, the Towering House clan. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico. Her prose and poetry have been published in The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature, Anti-Heroin Chic, Wordgathering, Writers Resist, Poetry Northwest, Abalone Mountain Press, and Prairie Schooner. Her essay, ‘Nowhere Place,’ won Prairie Schooner’s 2017 Summer Creative Nonfiction Contest, a Glenna Luschei Award, and was recognized as a 2018 Notable Essay by Best American Essays. Her poetry has been a finalist for the James Welch Poetry Prize and 2021 Joy Harjo Poetry Contest. The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature, in which her poems were published, received a 2022 Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award. Her poetry/photography chapbook, My Body is an Ill-fitting Costume, was recently published by Abalone Mountain Press. She is currently revising a novel, Ash, and writing a memoir.
