Lauren Johnson
Consultant
About Lauren
Lauren Kay Johnson is a former military public affairs officer and award-winning Department of Defense journalist. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Glamour (as winner of the 9th annual personal essay contest), wbur.com, Yale Medicine Magazine, CONSEQUENCE magazine, Drunken Boat, Pleiades, and several anthologies. Her writing and interviews have also been used in the creation of dance and theater productions. Lauren has been featured on nationally-syndicated radio programs and has lectured at schools, conferences, and veteran centers across the country, including the Association of Writers and Writing Programs national conference, the Boston Book Festival, and the University of Iowa. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Emerson College, and her work has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A former editor-in-chief of Redivider literary journal, Lauren currently serves as a co-editor for Wrath-Bearing Tree and a nonfiction screener for Ploughshares. Her forthcoming memoir explores her coming-of-age against the backdrop of war—beginning with her mother's Army career and deployment in support of Operation Desert Storm when she was seven years old, and later with Lauren's own service in Afghanistan.