[3] She studied with poet Charles Simic at the University of New Hampshire, then began working for fiction editor Rust Hills at Esquire in 1978.
[4] She edited articles at Esquire, Redbook, and Outside, and was a staff writer for Life,[5] where she wrote profiles and obituaries of celebrities, including Diana, Princess of Wales.
[10][11] Library Journal called it a “kaleidoscopic” book “by a non-librarian [that] captures the breathtaking transformations in the field in recent years,” and noted that her subjects ranged from digital cataloging and collections to savvy young urban librarians and the Connecticut Four, who challenged the Patriot Act.
[16] In her 2014 book, Lives in Ruins, Johnson “captures the vivid and quirky characters drawn to archaeology.”[17] She writes about contemporary archaeologists in the context of their work in the field in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, Machu Picchu, Australia, Asia, the U.K., Africa, the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, and multiple other stateside locations.
Nature called it a “gem of hands-on reportage,”[18] and archaeologists confirmed it as an accurate portrait of the profession, particularly with respect to the scarcity of paying jobs and the challenges of preservation in a dynamic world.