Mike Johnson

2025 – Speechless, Lasavia Publishing, Fiction – Memoir

2025 – Wheeling South, Lasavia Publishing, poetry

2024 – The Nine Lives of Willa the Cat, Lasavia Publishing, poetry

2024 – Love In The Age of Unreason, Lasavia Publishing

2023 – Afterworld , Lasavia Publishing, a novel

2023 – Selected Poems, Lasavia Publishing

2023 – Counterpart, Lasavia Publishing, a novel

2023 – Sketches, Lasavia Publishing, poetry

2021 – Stench. Lasavia Publishing, a novel

2021 – Flippity Fluppity Flop. Lasavia Publishing, poetry

2020 – Driftdead. Lasavia Publishing, a novel

2020 – The Raising Light Trilogy, Lasavia Publishing, three books of poetry

Part One – The Toy Box

Part Two – Hide Your Eyes: The Rumi Poems

Part Three – Extinction Rebellion

2019 – Ladder with No Rungs. Lasavia Publishing, poetry

2018 – Zombie in a Spacesuit. Lasavia Publishing, a novel

2018 – Kenni and the Roof slide (with Jen Rackham). Lasavia Publishing, children’s book

2017 – Two Lines and a Garden (with Leila Lees). Lasavia Publishing, poetry

2017 – Confessions of a Cockroach/Headstone. Lasavia Publishing, two novellas

2015 – Taniwha (With Jennifer Rackham). Lasavia Publishing, children’s book

2015 – Back in the Day. Lasavia Publishing, short stories

2014 – Hold my Teeth While I Teach you to Dance. Lasavia Publishing, a novel.

2014 – The Angel of Compassion. Lasavia Publishing, non-fiction

2004 – Stench, Hazard Press: Christchurch, a novel

2001 – Counterpart. Harper Collins: Sydney, a novel

1996 – Dumb Show. Longacre Press: Dunedin, a novel

1996 – Treasure Hunt. Auckland University Press: Auckland, poetry

1991 – Lethal Dose. Hard Echo Press: Auckland, a novel

1991 – Foreigners. Penguin Books: Auckland, three novellas

1991 – Mary Mouse, Manuscript of Children’s Poetry, broadcast on NZ National Radio

1987 – Antibody Positive, Hard Echo Press, Auckland, a novel

1986 – Lear: The Shakespeare Company Plays Lear at Babylon. Hard Echo Press, Auckland, a novel

1985 – Standing Wave, Hard Echo Press, Auckland, poetry,

1984 – From a Woman in Mt Eden Prison & Drawing Lessons, Hard Echo Press, Auckland, poetry

1983 – The Palanquin Ropes. Voice Press, Wellington, poetry

1973 – Dialogue, Whitcomb and Tombs, Christchurch, a text for senior English, Co-author with A.T. Johnson

Pending: To Beatrice Where We Crossed The Line. Second Avenue Press: Auckland, poetry, due March, 201

Only those stories anthologized are listed. The list does not include stories, or novel excerpts, published in magazines or literary periodicals.

2021 – ‘The Coming of the Gray Ghost’ (Eunoia Press). Scorchers. Ed. by Paul Mountfort.

2009 – ‘A visit to Te Wharau Bay: A Conversation at the End of the World’ (Random House). The Best New Zealand Fiction # 6. Edited by Owen Marshall.

2006 – ‘The Wedding of Psyche’ (Reed Books). The myth of the 21st Century. Ed. by Tina Shaw and Jack Ross.

1998 – ‘Towards the bottom of the garden, the plum blossom shows pink.’ (Tandem) One hundred Short Short Stories Ed by Graham Lay.

1996 – ‘The Fohn Effect’ (IPL) Antipodean Tales Ed. by Geoff Churchman.

1995 – ‘Teledildonics’ Lust (Vintage) Ed. by Michael Giftkins.

1995 – ‘When That Shark Bites’ Men Love Sex (Vintage, Australia) Ed. by Alan Close.

1995 – ‘Rutherford’s Dream’ Rutherford’s Dreams (IPL) Ed. by Warwick Bennett and Patrick Hudson.

1994 – ‘The Harmony of the Swine’ Tart and Juicy (Vintage) Ed. by Michael Giftkins.

1992 – ‘The Woman of Tuscany House’ Erotic Writing (Penguin) Ed. by Sue McCauley and Richard McLachlan.

2006 – Wellington composer Carol Shortis wins the Philip Neil Memorial Prize with a song entitled ‘The riddle of her flight’ with the lyrics of a poem from Mike Johnson’s book Treasure Hunt.

2002 – Nominated for the Sir Julius Vogel Award for the novel Counterpart.

2002 – Auckland University Literary Fellowship. Value: $50,000.

2001 – Creative NZ project grant for work on a novel. Value $9000.

1999 – Francis Keane Award for best short story, ‘Magic Strings.’

1997 – Buckland Memorial Literary Award for the novel, Dumb Show.

1996 – Creative NZ Project Grant for work on a novel (Counterpart). Value $18,000.

1992 – Playwrights Grant for working on dramatizing of Lear: Value: $3000.

1990 – Literary Fund Project Grant for work on fiction. Value $9000.

1988 – Literary Fund Project Grant for work on a novel. Value: $6000.

1987 – Literary Fellowship for twelve months at the University of Canterbury. (Writer in Residence.) Value $40,000.

1986 – Lear. A novel. Shortlisted for New Zealand Book Awards.

1985 – Literary Fund Project Grant for prose writing. Value: $3000.

1982 – Poetry Prize: Te Awamutu Festival of the Arts.

1981 – Co winner of the John Cowie Reed Memorial Competition for a long poem or sequence of poems, with The Palanquin Ropes.

I began teaching creative writing in 1987, during a year as Literary Fellow at the University Canterbury, and have been teaching it ever since. Throughout the 1990’s I taught night classes for what was then The Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Auckland. These classes had wonderful names, like ‘Develop your Creative Writing Potential!’ In 2003 I began working for the English Department at the University of Auckland, teaching across a range of undergraduate creative and academic writing classes, including The Short Story and Contemporary Poetry both at stage three level.

In 2005 I worked in the first year of The University of Auckland’s Master’s in Creative Writing program (MCW). From 2008 to 2020, I taught both undergrad and postgrad creative writing in the English department at Auckland University of Technology.