John Walsh was born in Wimbledon to Irish parents in 1953, and was educated at Exeter College, Oxford and University College, Dublin. In 1987, after reviewing books for years, he became literary editor of the Evening Standard, and from 1988-1992 was literary editor and feature writer at the Sunday Times. In 1993, he joined the Independent as editor of the magazine, and spent the next 20 years as Assistant Editor in a variety of roles, writing features, reviewing restaurants and interviewing famous people, from Dame Ninette de Valois to Ozzy Osbourne. In 1996, he chaired the judging panel of the Forward Poetry Prize. From 1997 to 1999, he was editorial director of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature. From 1998 to 2015, he could be heard, alongside Sebastian Faulks and James Walton, on the popular Radio 4 book quiz show, The Write Stuff. He has written The Falling Angels: an Irish Romance (1999), Are You Talking To Me? A Life in the Movies (2003) and Sunday at the Cross Bones (2007), a novel about the Rector of Stiffkey. John is married to Angie O'Rourke, has three grown-up children, Sophie, Max and Clementine, and lives in London and West Sussex.