Stephanie Johnson

Stephanie Patricia Johnson (born 1961) is a poet, playwright, and short story writer from New Zealand.

She lives in Auckland with her husband, film editor Tim Woodhouse, although she lived in Australia for much of her twenties.

Many of her books have been published there, and her non-fiction book West Island, about New Zealanders in Australia, is partly autobiographical.

Johnson was born in Auckland in 1961.

Johnson has taught creative writing at the University of Auckland, the University of Waikato, Auckland University of Technology and Massey University.

She co-founded the Auckland Writers' Festival with Peter Wells, and served as creative director and trustee.

Johnson has published novels, poetry, plays, and collections of short stories.

In 1985, Johnson won the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award.

Johnson also won the 1996 Dymocks/Quote Unquote Reader's Poll, Best New Zealand Book for The Heart’s Wild Surf and Crimes of Neglect, was shortlisted for the 1993 Wattie Book Awards.

In the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, The Whistler, was shortlisted for the fiction award in 1999 and Belief was shortlisted in 2001.

Johnson received the 2000 New Zealand Post Katherine Mansfield Prize, allowing her to travel to Menton, France.

She received the University of Auckland Literary Fellowship in 2001.

The Shag Incident was awarded the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 2003 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

Music From a Distant Room (in 2006) and John Tomb's Head (in 2008) were nominated for International Dublin Literary Award.

In 2016 she was selected as the Randell Cottage Writer in Residence.

In the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours, Johnson was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature.

In 2022, she received the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction.