Milly Johnson is a British author of romantic fiction.[1] She has written 21 bestselling novels with over three million sales worldwide, one book of poetry, and five novellas. She was nominated for the Melissa Nathan Award for Romantic comedy in 2012, was a two-time winner of the RoNA Award for Comedy Romance in 2014[2] and 2016, and was also a 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, poet, professional joke writer, short story writer and newspaper columnist.[3]
Born in Barnsley on 23 February 1964, Johnson was educated at Agnes Road Primary School, Longcar Junior School, and Hall Balk School for Girls. Later, she studied drama and teacher training at St Luke's Campus, University of Exeter.[4]
She lived in Haworth, West Yorkshire 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 market to supplement her income, and she also became a ghostwriteronPurple Ronnie in its earliest days.[5] Later, she was to become one of the country's leading professional copywriters for the greetings card market.
Her breakthrough into publishing came when she submitted a manuscript entitled The Yorkshire Pudding Club based on her experience of being pregnant at the same time as two friends. She secured her first two-book deal with Simon and Schuster in 2005.
Hairy Biker Dave Myers cited her as his favourite author and had listened to every audible version of Johnson's books.
Johnson also released four shorter novellas exclusive to ebook: The Wedding Dress, a collection of short stories related to weddings (2012) and Here Come the Boys (2014). 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 own father. In 2019, she released a book of poetry A Cat-Shaped Space, the profits of which were all donated to Yorkshire Cat Rescue.[6] In 2020, she also wrote a novella 'The Little Dreams of Lara Cliffe' for the resurrected 'Quick Reads' project to encourage adult reading.
