Airini Beautrais was born in Auckland in 1982. Her debut work of fiction, Bug Week, won Aotearoa New Zealand’s top fiction award, the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize, at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. She is the author of four collections of poetry, including Secret Heart (VUP, 2006), which won the Jessie Mackay Award for First Book of Poetry at the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. In 2016 she won the Landfall Essay Prize. Airini is also a science teacher and dance instructor. This is her first collection of essays.