William Palmer was born in 1945 and educated at schools in England and Wales. During the 1960s and 70s he lived in London and the Midlands and worked at a bewildering variety of jobs. He began writing at the age of fifteen but only became a full-time writer in the mid-80s: his first novel, The Good Republic, was published by Secker & Warburg in 1990 and since then he has had eight books published.

His latest novel, The Devil is White, was published by Jonathan Cape in early 2013. His latest full-length collection of poems, The Water Steps, came out from Rack Press in 2017. Stories and poems have appeared in many journals, including London Magazine, Poetry Review, Rialto, the Spectator, the Times Literary Supplement, and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. He has reviewed regularly for the Independent and Literary Review.

In 1997 he was awarded the Travelling Scholarship of the Society of Authors, an Arts Council Bursary followed in 2002, and the First Collection Prize for his book of poems, The Island Rescue, at the Listowel Writers' Week literary festival in 2006. He was a Writing Fellow at the University of Birmingham, 2000-3, at the University of Warwick, 2005-7, and at King's College, London, 2011-12.