Allan Johnston’s poems have been published in Poetry, Poetry East, Rhino, and over sixty other journals. He is the author of “Tasks of Survival and of Northport”, a collection of poems about his life in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s, and a recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize nomination (2009), and First Prize in the 2010 Outrider Press Literary Anthology Poetry Contest. Originally from California, he earned his M.A. in Creative Writing and his Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Davis, and now teaches writing and literature at Columbia College and DePaul University in Chicago. He currently serves as a reader for the Illinois Emerging Poets competition and is editor of the Journal for the Philosophical Study of Education. In the past he has worked as a sheepherder, shake splitter, roofer, forest fire fighter, Indian cook, and photographer, among other occupations.
May 152011