The Author
Meet the Author
Trees, rain, fleece jackets, and a dog named Knox who is certain he’s the main character.
Nichelle Johnson is a Chicago native who eventually wandered out to the Pacific Northwest, where she now lives surrounded by trees, rain, and an unreasonable number of fleece jackets. Her storytelling career began the way many great epics do—with bedtime stories for her godsons, who demanded plot twists, dragons, and absolutely no early bedtimes. Eventually, Nichelle realized she might as well write a book, if only to prove she could finish a story before someone fell asleep.
When she’s not building magical worlds, Nichelle can usually be found traveling, taking photos of things that “just have good lighting,” or strolling along the beach with her dog, Knox—who is convinced he is the main character in every story ever told. She’s still not sure he’s wrong.
Knox Academy is her first official leap into publishing, and she hopes it brings readers the same joy, wonder, and occasional chaos that inspired her to write it in the first place.
The Story Behind
The series began as bedtime stories invented for Nichelle’s godsons — the kind of stories that had to earn their attention chapter by chapter, with plot twists on demand and dragons whenever the night ran long.
Those stories grew into a middle-grade adventure about twins who walk through a door that shouldn’t exist, the magical creatures waiting on the other side, the dragons bonded to their riders, and the friendships that hold when a prophecy starts pressing in.
At its heart, Knox Academy is about self-discovery: finding out what you’re capable of long before you feel ready for it.