Peter Johnson was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1951. He received his B.A. from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of New Hampshire. He is the winner of the 2001 James Laughlin Award for his second collection of prose poems, Miracles & Mortifications (White Pine Press, 2001). His other books include the book of short stories I'm a Man (2003); the chapbook Love Poems for the Millennium (1998); and the poetry collection Pretty Happy! (1997).

Johnson is the founder and editor of The Prose Poem: An International Journal and the editor of The Best of The Prose Poem: An International Journal (White Pine Press, 2000). He received a creative writing award in 2002 from Rhode Council on the Arts and a fellowship in 1999 from the National Endowment for the Arts. A contributing editor to American Poetry Review, Web del Sol, and Slope, Peter Johnson teaches creative writing and children's literature at Providence College in Rhode Island, where he lives with his wife, Genevieve, and two sons, Kurt and Lucas.