Roy Williams

Roy Williams is one Australia's emerging public intellectuals. Since mid-2006 his book reviews have appeared regularly in The Weekend Australian, and he has also been a contributor to The Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Literary Review, Dissent and Inside Sport. God, Actually is his first book.

Williams was born and raised on the North Shore of Sydney. He attended Sydney University in the 1980s and won the University Medal in law, before embarking upon a twenty-year career in the legal profession. He was a litigator at one of Australia's leading firms, Allens Arthur Robinson (formerly Allen, Allen & Hemsley), handling many important cases in courts across the country. One of his specialties was defamation.

But in 2004 Williams was stricken by a life-changing illness. Forced to leave the law, he took time to recuperate before deciding to become a writer.

Writing is in Williams's blood: his father was a Walkley award-winning journalist who wrote speeches for Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam and several NSW premiers, and his brother was for many years a feature writer for Time Australia.

In God, Actually, Williams harnesses his legal and literary skills to analyse the arguments for and against the existence of God.

For a Christian apologist, Williams's background is unusual. His paternal great-grandfather was a Presbyterian minister in the outback of New South Wales. His maternal great-great grandfather was a minister of the Episcopal Church of Scotland and chaplain to the Royal Navy during World War One. However, Williams did not grow up as a practising Christian. For most of his life he was deeply sceptical of all religious belief systems.

After slowly coming to faith in his thirties, he began writing God, Actually to hone his own thinking.

Now 45, he lives in Sydney with his wife and two daughters. His recreational interests include golf, movies, cricket-watching, chess, gardening and caring for his pets - a border terrier and two spoilt cats.