Allan Johnston has been publishing poetry for over 30 years, and has had work appear in Poetry, Poetry East, Rattle, Rhino, Weber Studies, and more than forty other journals. Among other awards, he has received an Illinois Arts Council fellowship, Pushcart Prize Nominations, and First Prize in Poetry in the 2010 Outrider Press Literary Anthology contest. He has published two books of poetry, Tasks of Survival (1996) and In a Window (2018). He has also published three chapbooks, Northport (2010), Departures (2013), and Contingencies (2015). Besides writing poetry, he has written on American literature and other topics, is past president of the Society for the Philosophical Study of Education, and teaches writing and literature at Columbia College and at DePaul University, both in Chicago. He co-edits Journal for the Philosophical Study of Education and serves as an outside poetry reader for poetry journals and for the Illinois Emerging Poets Competition. His other occupations have included being a forest fire fighter and an East Indian cook.