Blossom Johnson

Blossom Johnson is a Diné storyteller, playwright, teaching artist and screenwriter. She is from the Yé’ii Dine’é Táchii’nii (Giant People) clan, and her maternal grandfather is from the Deeshchíí’nii (Start of the Red Streak People) clan.

She was raised by her grandmother on the very top of Dził Yijiin (Black Mesa), AZ and she’s always been surrounded by stories. When she opens the front door of her grandma’s yellow house, she can see a coal mine. Below the mesa is an old run-down restaurant where her mother used to hustle as a waitress during the summer in her teen years, and there is an old store where her grandmother would up-sale her hand made jewelry to tourists by the entrance, but the restaurant and the store has now been closed for years because what was taken from the earth was diminished, so no one stayed, and they eventually went out of business.

The people that stayed are Diné and their stories, her stories, are thriving. When she creates, she writes for her people and the stories she writes come from memories, experiences, and family history. In her writing, she reveals truths that are hard to face but she balances the darkness with humor, so the viewer has a chance to breathe and laugh.

Blossom was awarded a residency with Willowtail Springs/Durango PlayFest. Additionally, she has been awarded AlterTheater Ensemble's AlterLab 2020-21, the 2022 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellowship, La Lengua/ AlterTheater Ensemble’s Decolonization Stories Commission 2022, The Playwrights’ Center 2022-2023 Jerome Fellowship, and is proud to be a recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Support for Individuals for the 2023 and 2024 fiscal year. Her play, Diné Nishłį (i am a sacred being) Or, A Boarding School Play, made the Kilroys 2023 Web. She is a mentee in writing for animation with the Netflix Animation Foundations Program 2022. As a dramaturg, Blossom has worked with Native Voices at the Autry, UCSB Launch Pad, PlayPenn, Urbanite Theatre, New Native Theatre and YIPAP (Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program). She has served as a panelist and script reader for the 22' Playwrights' Center Many Voices Fellowship and the 22' New Harmony Project. Blossom holds an MFA in Dramaturgy from Columbia University and a BA in Theatre from Arizona State University. A proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA).