I’m Tracy Heather Johnson, prize winning writer of short fiction and poetry. I am head coach and director with Realise Training, where I teach storytelling & creativity among many other professional skills.

I also work as a presenter, most recently on a podcast series on creative practices, interviewing famous names including music producer Gareth Jones and songwriter Grian Chatten of Fontaines DC.

I’m available for fiction & feature writing and presenting work, as well as one to one career coaching for developing creativity or to help you see a creative project through to completion .

My background is in academia, completing a PhD in English Literature and French feminist philosophy in 2000, and developing presenting & writing skills that have seen me lecture across the UK and as far afield as China on topics from critical thinking to modern horror cinema.

I have been a qualified career coach since 2006, working across a wide range of sectors, including media, higher education and the arts, and have developed extensive commercial knowledge while at Realise. I recently became a trained mentor with the charity Arts Emergency and look forward to supporting young people into their exciting cultural careers.

If you would like to discuss one to one coaching to either enter a creative career or to develop your creativity in your current work area, please get in touch.

Fiction & film work

I am the author of the Flights on Dark Wings stories, which was optioned by Troy TV UK. You can hear four of them on the podcast of the same name, available on all the main platforms. ‘Attachment’ was published in issue 4 of The Horizon Magazine. ‘Drag’ was named as ‘one to watch’ in SFX magazine’s horror column and won a top ten place in the 2022 Christopher Assheton-Stones Short Fiction Competition. ‘Photographs’ was published in issue 5 of Myth & Lore.

With my horror buff hat on, I am a regular contributor to the Cradle to the Grave podcast, as well as being a recent guest with Drunken Horror and The Spooky Shelf.

I regularly perform live readings of my short fiction and poetry at events, open mic nights and in bookstores, including Waterstones.

Non-fiction writing & features

I have been published in Film Stories The Horizon Magazine Gothic Studies Feminist Theory OM Yoga and Movement for Modern Life among others, and have interviewed several eminent musicians, including Portishead’s Geoff Barrow. Trotman Education also commissioned me to write the graduate careers guide Working in Science, which was published in 2013. I work professionally to a brief and am happy to consider potential commissions, so do get in touch.

Music and photography

I studied songwriting online with the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in 2021 and play piano, guitar and sing a little. I recently released my first single, I Am Love, with Tipsy Eyes, an electronic and cinematic epic you can buy on Bandcamp or stream from the usual places, for which I wrote the lyrics and performed the vocals. More work is currently in progress, so stay posted.

I’ve also been studying photography & intend to develop this professionally soon. That’s one of my self-portraits on the right.

I’m currently working on an exciting collaborative project with visual artist Juliet Sugg, lecturer on the MA in Illustration and Visual Arts at the University of the Arts London, sharing our interest in the concept of the ‘monstrous feminine’ & depictions of the female sexuality, called Deviant. We’ll be combining her drawings with my poetry and some live performance, in London and Bristol in autumn 2024. Stay posted for details…