Gillian [Jill] Bliss was born on April 29, 1937, in London, England. She earned a diploma in education and a master's degree in English from St.

Anne's College, Oxford. She taught English at Enfield Girls' Grammar School from 1959 to 1962. In 1961 she married Edmund Paton Walsh and had three children: Edmund, Margaret, and Helen. Walsh started to write when her children were young and she was at home; she has said that her interests lie in nearly everything: she calls it the "butterfly mind syndrome." She does not understand her motivation, nor does she want to, for fear that knowledge may change her focus. Although it is difficult to categorize Walsh's complete body of works, it appears that she has found a niche in the genre of young adult historical fiction. Walsh has said that her "preferred subjects lie predominantly in the large area of human experience...