[4][5] Her 2013 debut in the young adult fiction sector, the standalone novel The Summer Prince, is set on a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk Brazilian arcology ruled by a nanotech-empowered matriarchy.

[6][7] Love Is the Drug, her 2014 standalone young adult novel, is set in Washington, D.C., and follows a prep-school student whose memory loss may be connected to a burgeoning global influenza pandemic.

[8][9] In February 2021 Johnson was the literary guest of honor and keynote speaker at the 39th annual Life, the Universe, & Everything professional science fiction and fantasy arts symposium.

[10] Johnson was born in Washington, D.C.[1] She graduated from Columbia University in 2004 with a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Languages and Cultures.

[13] She received a master's degree in Mesoamerican studies from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México for her thesis on fermented food and its ritual symbolism in pre-Columbian Mexico.