Kirk Wallace Johnson is an author and screenwriter. His books include The Fishermen and the Dragon: Fear, Greed, and a Fight for Justice on the Gulf Coast, The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century, To Be a Friend is Fatal: the Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind. He is also the creator of Drug Spies, a scripted series about pharmaceutical espionage. He is the founder of the List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies.
His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy, among others. Prior to founding the List Project, Johnson served in Iraq with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Baghdad and then Fallujah as the Agency’s first coordinator for reconstruction in the war-torn city.
He is a a senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy, and the recipient of fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin, Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Wurlitzer Foundation. Prior to his work in Iraq, he conducted research on political Islamism as a Fulbright Scholar in Egypt. He received his BA from the University of Chicago in 2002. Born in West Chicago, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife, son, and daughter.
“Everyone enjoyed Kirk and found his story fascinating. He was the perfect speaker for this lecture series which combines the art, law, and business schools of Indiana University Indianapolis.” — Herron School of Art and Design, 2024
