Jo McMillan is the author of three novels. Her first, Motherland, won an Arts Council Individual Literature Award and was featured on BBC Radio. The Happiness Factory, an acclaimed account of men, money, and power, draws on the many years she lived in China. Her most recent novel, The Accidental Immigrants, was a finalist for the 2025 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and tells a story, witnessed first-hand, of the hostile environment spreading across Europe and what it's like to be caught up in it.

Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, Granta, Metro, China Review, and the Times Higher Education Supplement. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, BBC Radio Scotland, at the Leipzig Book Fair, as a guest of Dulwich Books, and at the Wilderness Festival. She is a citizen of both the UK and Germany and currently lives in Berlin.