Fred Johnston (born 1951) is an Irish poet, novelist, literary critic and musician. He is the founder and current director of the Western Writers' Centre in Galway. He co-founded the Irish Writers' Co-operative in 1974, and founded Galway's annual Cúirt International Festival of Literature in 1986.
From the early 1980s to the mid 1990s, Johnston contributed poetry and short stories to the Scottish international literature, arts and affairs magazine, Cencrastus.