Milly Johnson is a British author of

romantic fiction A romance novel or romantic novel generally refers to a type of genre fiction novel which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Pre ...

. She has written 20 best-selling novels with over three million sales worldwide, one book of poetry, and 5 novellas. She was nominated for the Melissa Nathan award for

Romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typic ...

in 2012, winner of the

RoNA Award The Romantic Novel of the Year Award is an award for romance novels since 1960, presented by Romantic Novelists' Association, and since 2003, the novellas, also won the Love Story of the Year (now RoNA Rose Award). In 2018, awards were given to ...

for Comedy Romance in 2014 and 2016 and Winner of Channel 4's ''Come Dine With Me'' – Barnsley edition. She was honoured with the Romantic Novelist Association's Outstanding Achievement Award in 2020. She is also an

after-dinner speaker Public speaking, also called oratory or oration, has traditionally meant the act of speaking face to face to a live audience. Today it includes any form of speaking (formally and informally) to an audience, including pre-recorded speech deliver ...

, poet, professional joke writer, short-story writer and newspaper columnist.

Biography

Born in Barnsley on 23 February 1964. She was an avid reader and writer of stories from a very young age and was strongly influenced by the works of

Enid Blyton Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer, whose books have been worldwide bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Her books are still enormously popular and have be ...

, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen,

Catherine Cookson Dame Catherine Ann Cookson, DBE (''née'' McMullen; 20 June 1906 – 11 June 1998) was a British writer. She is in the top 20 of the most widely read British novelists, with sales topping 100 million, while retaining a relatively low profile i ...

Stan Barstow Stanley Barstow FRSL (28 June 1928 – 1 August 2011) was an English novelist. Biography Barstow was born in Horbury, near Wakefield in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father was a coal miner and he attended Ossett Grammar School. He work ...

and

Barry Hines Melvin Barry Hines, FRSL (30 June 1939 – 18 March 2016) was an English author, playwright and screenwriter. His novels and screenplays explore the political and economic struggles of working-class Northern England, particularly in his native W ...

, who also gave Johnson a great love of birds and she regularly flies birds of prey at the

Falconry Falconry is the hunting of wild animals in their natural state and habitat by means of a trained bird of prey. Small animals are hunted; squirrels and rabbits often fall prey to these birds. Two traditional terms are used to describe a person ...

Centre in Thirsk. She was educated at Agnes Road Primary School, Longcar Junior School and Hall Balk School for Girls. At university she studied drama and teacher training at

St Luke's Campus St Luke's Campus is a small university campus which is part of the University of Exeter. The School of Sport and Health Sciences, the Graduate School of Education, and the Medical School are all based at St Luke's. St Luke's is also home to the ...

University of Exeter , mottoeng = "We Follow the Light" , established = 1838 - St Luke's College1855 - Exeter School of Art1863 - Exeter School of Science 1955 - University of Exeter (received royal charter) , type = Public , ...

. She lived in

Haworth Haworth () is a village in the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, in the Pennines, south-west of Keighley, west of Bradford and east of Colne in Lancashire. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhope. Nearby villages incl ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exis ...

for many years where she became a friend of Stan Barstow, who also lived there. She had a series of administrative jobs whilst writing jokes and poems for the

greetings card A greeting card is a piece of card stock, usually with an illustration or photo, made of high quality paper featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthday ...

market to supplement her income and became a

ghostwriter A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders ofte ...

Purple Ronnie Giles Andreae (born 16 March 1966) is a British writer and illustrator. He is the creator of the stickman poet Purple Ronnie, the humorous artist / philosopher Edward Monkton, and the author of Giraffes Can't Dance, along with many other books fo ...

in its earliest days. Later, she was to become one of the country's leading professional

copywriters Copywriting is the act or occupation of writing text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing. The product, called copy or sales copy, is written content that aims to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade a person or ...

for the greetings card market. She had her first child in 1998, being pregnant at the same time as two of her best friends. When she sent off to an agent the idea for a book about three Yorkshire women who fall pregnant at the same time, based on her own experience of joining "the club" of women experienced with having babies, and the experiences derived from her parentcraft classes, she secured her first two-book deal with

Simon and Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

in 2004 when she was forty.

Books

Her first novel was ''The Yorkshire Pudding Club'' in 2007, and her first hardback release was ''The Perfectly Imperfect Woman'' in 2018. Johnson also released four shorter novellas exclusive to

ebook An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Al ...

: ''The Wedding Dress'', a collection of short stories related to weddings (2012) and ''Here Come the Boys'' (2014) inspired by Johnson and her family missing a cruise ship two years previously. ''Ladies Who Launch'' was written in 2015 as both a sequel to ''Here Come The Boys'' and an introduction to ''Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Cafe.'' She released the 16,000 short story ebook ''The Barn on Half Moon Hill'' in May 2016 to raise funds for the Care for Claire fund to raise money for Claire Throssell, whose children were killed in a murder/suicide by their father. In 2019, she released a book of poetry ''A Cat-Shaped Space'', the profits of which are all donated to Yorkshire Cat Rescue. In 2020 she also wrote a novella 'The Little Dreams of Lara Cliffe' for the resurrected 'Quick Reads' project to encourage adult reading.

Awards and honours

Johnson's books are published all over the world, in print, ebook, large print and audio form. *''2014 – Romantic Novelists’ Comedy Award for It's Raining Men.'' *''2015 – Yorkshire Society Award for Arts and Culture.'' *''2015 – nominated for the Romantic Novelists' Comedy Award for Teashop on the Corner.'' *''2016 – Romantic Novelists' Comedy Award for Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Cafe.'' *''2017 – nominated for the Romantic Novelists' Contemporary Award for Queen of Wishful Thinking.'' *''2018 — Vice President of the

Yorkshire Society The Yorkshire Society is a non-political organisation founded in December 1980. It extended the philosophies of an earlier Yorkshire Society which, in 1818, wished to encourage people born, working or living in the County of Yorkshire to join an ...

.'' *''2020'' ''— RNA Outstanding Achievement Award'' *''2021'' – The Golsboro Books Award for Romantic Contemporary Fiction for ''My One True North''.

List of books

*''The Yorkshire Pudding Club (2007)'' *''The Birds and the Bees (2008)'' *''A Spring Affair (2009)'' *''A Summer Fling (2010)'' *''Here Come The Girls (2011)'' *''An Autumn Crush (2011)'' *''White Wedding (2012)'' *''A Winter Flame (2012)'' *''It's Raining Men (2013)'' *''The Teashop on the Corner (2014)'' *''Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Cafe (2015)'' *''Sunshine over Wildflower Cottage (2016)'' *''Queen of Wishful Thinking (2017)'' *''The Perfectly Imperfect Woman (2018)'' *''The Mother of All Christmases (2018)'' *''The Magnificent Mrs Mayhew (2019) '' *''A Cat-Shaped Space (2019)'' (a book of poetry) *''The Little Dreams of Lara Cliffe'' (2020) *''My One True North (2020)'' *''I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day'' (2020) *''The Woman in the Middle'' (2021)

Ebook exclusives

*''The Wedding Dress (2012)'' *''The Four Seasons Collection – a compilation of the Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter books (2013)'' *''Here Come The Boys (2014)'' *''Ladies Who Launch (2015)'' *''The Barn on Half Moon Hill'' (2016)

References

External links and articles

The Milly Johnson WebsiteMilly Johnson’s Blog
*"A Passion for Men in Tights" – ''Yorkshire Post'' *"Driven to Success by Workplace Bullying" – ''Sunday Post'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Milly 1964 births Living people British romantic fiction writers