Sandy Johnson attended the University of Pennsylvania, CIDOC in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and the New School for Social Research in New York City. She studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and at the Lee Strasberg Studio in Los Angeles.

As an actress, Johnson appeared in numerous regional stage productions, various TV episodes, soap operas and appearances in feature films Ash Wednesday and Two-Minute Warning.

In 1989, Johnson joined the faculty of Washington College in Chestertown, MD, as a creative writer instructor.

Johnson published her first novel, THE CUPPI (Delacorte/Dell), a fictionalized account of a twelve-year-old runaway, THE CUPPI (a police acronym for Circumstances Undetermined Pending Police Investigation) was the first book to deal with the rising epidemic of teen-aged children taking to the streets. Because of the extensive research involving interviews with dozens of runaways, Johnson was called upon to lecture to parent-teacher groups, and law enforcement and social agencies, and made numerous TV appearances: Washington and Philadelphia morning shows, Good Morning America, The Mike Douglas Show, among them.

As a result of her personal crusade, sections of the book were read into the Congressional Record, and twelve crisis shelters opened in major cities. Stories appeared in newspapers and magazines around the country, including a four-page spread in People Magazine. Features ran in Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, Liz Smith's column, and received rave reviews in The New York Times, Publishers Weekly and the Wall Street Journal. The Library Journal featured Johnson's photograph on its cover.

Johnson’s second novel, WALK A WINTER BEACH (Delacorte/Dell 1982), was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

AGAINST THE LAW (Bantam 1986), a non-fiction account of the Knoxville, Tennessee attorney Mary Evans who fell in love with her convict-client and aided his escape from prison.

THE BOOK OF ELDERS: The Life Stories & Wisdom of Great American Indians (HarperSanFrancisco 1994). THE BOOK OF TIBETAN ELDERS (Riverhead 1996) with a foreword by His Holiness the Dali Lama, THE BRAZILIAN HEALER WITH A KITCHEN KNIFE and Other Stories of Mystics, Shamans and Miracle-Makers (Rodale 2003). Republished as MYSTICS AND HEALERS

Johnson has just completed a memoir, The Thirteenth Moon and is currently working on a novel, Day of Yemanja.