Daniel Johnson was raised in Salem, Ohio. He has worked as an educator and teaching artist for more than 10 years in public schools, hospitals, and prisons. He is the founding director of 826 Boston, a nonprofit youth writing center for students ages 6 to 18, which is fronted by the Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute.

How to Catch a Falling Knife, his first book of poetry, will be published by Alice James Books in May 2010. His poetry has appeared in a variety of publications including The Best American Poetry 2007, jubilat, VERSE, Barrow Street, and in the anthology I Have My Own Song For It: Modern Poems of Ohio. Johnson lives with his wife in Cambridge, Massachussets.