Alabama Bound Author Allen Barra

Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on June 18, 1961, Angela Johnson is the daughter of Arthur, an autoworker, and Truzetta (Hall) Johnson, an accountant. The family moved to Ohio when Johnson was 15 months old, and she has lived there ever since. She attended Kent State University where she studied special needs education, but fearing having a degree would push her into teaching rather than allowing her to write she left before graduation.

Stories were an important part of Johnson's childhood. Her father and grandfather were storytellers and she enjoyed listening to stories being read at school. She wrote short stories and "punk poetry" while she was a college student, but she realized that children's writing was where her future lay while working as a nanny for the young son of writer Cynthia Rylant, author of the Henry and Mudge series, in the mid-1980s. Rylant's library of children's books along with her encouragement inspired Johnson to begin working on her first picture books. It was Rylant who submitted Johnson's first book, Tell Me a Story, Mama, to her publisher. Johnson subsequently bought Rylant's house when Rylant and her partner, Dav Pilkey, author of the "Captain Underpants" stories, moved away. She told the Pittsburg Post-Gazette that her readers love the idea that she lives in Captain Underpants' house. By 1993 when her first novel for young adults, Toning the Sweep appeared, she had published seven picture books, including the award-winning Tell Me a Story, Mama (1989), and When I am Old With You (1990).