J.F. Derry was born near London, raised near Primrose Hill and in Lincolnshire, and studied at the Universities of Bangor, York and Edinburgh for degrees in Biochemistry, Bioelectronics and Biological Computation, and a PhD in African Ecology. Mainly working in British and African universities, but also in Spain, Brussels, Mongolia and Australia, to date, his publication history is mostly in academic journals, on aspects of computational biology, pastoralism and on Charles Darwin and evolution. However, he has also written for several national newspapers, various governments, several major record labels and independent book publishers. His fiction has appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and his poetry is at the Human Genre Project. He lives in Edinburgh, with his partner and their two daughters.