Derek Johns has spent his life surrounded by words. This former bookseller, editor and publisher is today a literary agent and celebrated novelist. Johns' first two novels, Wintering and Wakening tell the story of Billy Palmer, a boy whose story of growing in post-war England begins in the 1950s. Most recently Johns has published The Billy Palmer Chronicles, a book which brings together the earlier two novels and includes the final part of the trilogy. Writing in the New Statesman, Sophie Ratcliffe described Johns' writing as containing, 'hints of both William Boyd and P Hartley within the narrative, as well as ghosts of Dickens and Defoe.' Join him in conversation with Noel Murphy as he discusses his fiction and his life in letters.
