[9] During Todd's school years the family moved several times in the vicinity of Dublin and struggled to make ends meet, supported largely by child care payments and meager royalties.

[10] Todd finished secondary education in Ireland and returned to the United States in 1974 for a summer job before matriculation at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

[12] Before Trinity College, Todd Johnson served in the United States Army from 1978 to 1982, stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, and determining to pursue civilian life.

[15] He was exposed to Pern before its beginning: soon after the move to Long Island when he was nine, his mother asked him what he thought of dragons; she was brainstorming about their "bad press all these years".

The result was a "technologically regressed survival planet" whose people were united against a threat from space, in contrast to America divided by the Vietnam War.

[13] Mother and son had also discussed Pern and its setting for years, and she had suggested that he "write the military science fiction prequels" to the colonization, but that never progressed far.

Todd attended DragonCon in Atlanta (September), where the 2011 Artist Guest of Honor was Michael Whelan, creator of cover art for some early Pern books including The White Dragon.

[24][25][26] In February 2018 Todd was the Literary Guest of Honor and Keynote Speaker at the 36th annual Life, the Universe, & Everything professional science fiction and fantasy arts symposium.