E. K. Johnston

Johnston started writing fan fiction in 2002, and wrote her first manuscript in 2009.[2] Her first book, The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim, was published in 2014, and is set in an alternate present-day Ontario where dragons are both real and a menace. The review in The New York Times called the book "a clever first step in the career of a novelist who [...] has many more songs to sing",[3] it was nominated for the William C. Morris Award in 2015.[1] A sequel, Prairie Fire, followed in 2015.

Johnston's third book was A Thousand Nights, a retelling of One Thousand and One Nights. C.S. Lewis's descriptions of the desert in The Horse and His Boy inspired Johnston in writing her own novel set in the desert.[4] A companion book, Spindle, followed in 2016, which was a reinterpretation of Sleeping Beauty.[5]

Her fifth novel, Exit, Pursued By A Bear, was published in 2016. Inspired by Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, it tells the story of cheer-leading captain Hermione Winters, who discovers she is pregnant after being sexually assaulted at a camp party. It was written partially as a challenge, and partially as a response to Stephen Woodworth's 2013 bill to re-criminalise abortion.[6] It was named a "Book of the Year" by several organisations, including NPR,[7] Publishers Weekly,[8] and the New York Public Library.[9] It won the Canadian Children's Book Centre's Amy Mathers Teen Book Award in 2017.[10]

A Star Wars fan,[11] Johnston was asked to write a book on the character Ahsoka Tano. Published in October 2016,[12] Ahsoka fills in the gap between her appearances in The Clone Wars and Rebels. Her second Star Wars novel, Queen's Shadow, was released in March 2019.[13] Featuring Padme Amidala, Queen's Shadow is set in the years between the events of The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.[14] Additionally, she has also written the story By Whatever Sun, focusing on Miara Larte, a character Johnston created within Ahsoka, and set during the events of A New Hope.

Johnston describes her novel That Inevitable Victorian Thing as a "Near-future Sci-fi Canadian Idealistic Romance",.[15] It was published in 2017.

She credits her discipline in academic writing for helping her time management while writing prose; and states she is a fast writer - she wrote A Thousand Nights in "about 20 days",[2] and writes with little disturbance. She advises early and young writers to learn to finish projects as practice in self-discipline and editing.[6]

Her favourite authors are Jo Graham, Elizabeth Wein, Tessa Gratton, Kiersten White, Madeleine L'Engle, JRR Tolkien, David Eddings, CS Lewis,[2] and Holly Black.[1] She plays the alto saxophone and the clarinet.[1]

Johnston released another Star Wars novel, Queen's Peril, on June 2, 2020.[16]

• 2015: William C. Morris Award, shortlist (The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim)
• 2017: Amy Mathers Teen Book Award in 2017, winner (Exit, Pursued By A Bear)