L. Austen Johnson - Award-Winning Writer & Designer

L. Austen Johnson

L. Austen Johnson is an award-winning writer and designer who studied English, Archaeology, and Astronomy in college. She holds a B.A from the University of Virginia and an M.A from the University of Chicago. She’s an avid reader, a sometimes songwriter, and an attempter of various art projects. Her poetry collection, Burning the Bacon, won Bronze in the 2020 Readers Favorite Awards. Her other works include the Romancing the Holidays Collection (including the #1 bestselling story, “Lucky Fall”) and the short story “True Loaf.”

I’m so excited for you to connect with L. Austen, check out her work, and follow along as she continues to inspire others to make their mental health a priority and chase after their dreams.

I'd love it if you'd introduce yourself, what you do, and what you're working on.

Hi, I’m an award-winning author and publishing professional. I work with books in every facet in my life, from being an author, working as a publishing consultant at an indie publisher, and being the founder of All About Book Covers, a book cover design website. 

Right now, I’m currently querying a fabulist novel-in-verse that’s “Brother Bear” meets Hans Christen Anderson’s Little Mermaid and a bittersweet picture book along the lines of theGiving Treethat’sLovemeets The Queen’s Gambit. I’m also finished up a fantasy novel inspired bySir Gawain and the Green Knight.

How did you get started?

My first book, Burning the Bacon, was published by GenZ Publishing when I was still in college. It came on the heels of my having to leave school for medical reasons and then returning and jumping into reaching my goals. 

As far as my writing, I started with poetry and thus far have continued with short form works. My second release was a folkloric short story called “True Loaf,” and last year, to combat the mental health hellscape that was 2020, I released a fun collection of four holiday romance novellas called Romancing the Holidays.

I’m hoping, though, to complete my first full-length novel soon, which is itself an achievement for me. (Never did I expect to write a novel).

What inspired the work that you're doing?

After GenZ accepted my book for publication, I actually applied to be an admin assistant there and then worked my way up to Operations Manager and now Publishing Consultant (so I have more time to do writing as a full-time gig). The experience that GenZ has given me now allows me to advise indie authors and publishers in various areas. I do editing, advertising, and book cover design for hundreds of authors. 

On the creative front, there is no one point of inspiration. Books have been with me forever. I actually wasn’t a strong reader until age ten or so, but I was lucky enough to grow up in a household of strong, quick readers. I watched my sister devour books, even getting in trouble in school for reading them during class. I saw my dad’s collection of thousands of fantasy books and my mom reading every night before bed (her kindle reading streak is something like 800 days in a row!). So, even when I struggled with reading, I was surrounded by books. In middle school, something started to click about words, and I was privileged to have teachers who nurtured that. Soon enough, I was writing every day—in a journal, for school, in the margins of my notes—and it was almost always poetry. 

While fantasy of any form is my particular “true love” in terms of genre, the reason I have been drawn to short form, and particularly verse, as a medium is because I find something crafty and engaging about the density of meaning that verse forces. You say a lot in as few words as possible and must make it have rhythm (and sometimes rhyme).

What is your biggest passion? Do you feel like you're living your passion and purpose?

My biggest passion, unsurprisingly, is language. I do feel like I’m living immersed in my passion every day. I’ve struggled with existentialism, for sure, but writing and creation helps me combat that. At 22, I got my Master’s focusing on medieval literature, which is almost entirely in verse, and I get to write about books, create auxiliary resources for books, or actually write my own stories every day of my life.

What is your joy blueprint? What lights you up, brings you joy, and makes you feel the most alive?

I love the simple things in life like lounging by a pool as much as the next person, but because of various experiences in my life, including being diagnosed with multiple chronic conditions from a young age, I’ve had to confront mortality very explicitly. 

Combine that with anxiety, and I find that I’m preoccupied with questions about joy and living a lot. And what brings me joy, to simplify it, is thinking about and then fighting off existentialism. Language and music and art have been my favorite tools for that thus far.

In the tangible sense, I’m happiest armed with a cup of tea, and seaside view, and a book to read or write.

How do you live intentionally? Are there tools/resources/practices that you rely on to help you stay mindful and grounded?

As someone whose day and night jobs revolve around being creative, it can be very easy to be overtly self-critical. This can become a vicious cycle that actually ends up hurting your creativity, for, I believe, to be creative there must be a level of freedom that you give yourself. Instead of giving into negative thoughts, I try to treat myself like I would a friend. If I find myself saying something super negative that I wouldn’t to my best friend or my family, I reel it back. 

I try to intentionally practice self-patience and self-empathy. I give myself a break if I don’t hit my writing goal because, let’s say, I had two migraines that week and my Crohn’s is flaring. I try to focus on what I did achieve that week instead of what is still left to be done. Did I think through a plot hole? Plan my next blog post? Create a new cover or two for All About Book Covers? Then, I get to celebrate those little victories. 

The hardest part for me is not beating myself up for beating myself up. If I lapse and am impatient with myself, I have to force myself to think positively instead of getting upset that I got upset with myself, which is pretty meta, but I think a lot of people can relate. You try to be mindful and then that’s your new goal—being mindful, being nice to yourself—, so it can turn into something else you can criticize, unless you focus on not doing so.

It’s also good to get immersed in enough hobbies or work or hanging out with your loved ones that you forget to overthink everything else.

What would your younger self think about what you're doing now?

I honestly never thought I’d be an author. It was always a hobby of mine, for sure, but I never really had a “this is what I’m meant to do” or “I’ve been wanting to be an author since 5-years-old” moment. While I stumbled my way into an English degree (I declared it in my third year only after already declaring my other major and minor), I’ve ended up in a really great place for myself, and I believe middle-school me who wrote poetry all the time would find it incredibly exciting. It’s one of those things that in hindsight makes a whole lot of sense, even though I was stressed out trying to figure out “what I’m meant to do” (which, as a concept, I don’t fully believe in anyway).

Do you have a go-to mantra or affirmation? 

I’ve seen this one around the chronic illness sub-communities of social media, and it’s a bit cheesy but still makes me feel good and excited about working hard some more: “You didn’t come this far to only come this far.” 

What is your biggest dream?

Like many authors, I’d love to hit the NYT bestseller list or Hugo awards nominees.

To learn more and connect with Lauren visit her website http://www.laustenjohnson.com/ and www.allaboutbookcovers.com on Twitter @laustenjohnson and Facebook @laustenjohnson and on Instagram @girlfriendofbath (bonus brownie points to anyone who knows why the heck that’s her handle)

Joy Corner is an interview-style blog series brought to you by Seek The Joy Podcast. Our mission continues to be a desire to share your stories, truths, joys and inspiration in your words. We invite you to join our corner, and share your joys, passions, and moments of inspiration as we continue to seek the joy, together. Join this series here