Jacquie McRae (Tainui) has a Master of Creative Writing with Honours and received a Michael King Māori Writers residency in 2018. She had previously completed Te Papa Tupu mentoring programme where she worked on her first novel, a young adult fiction, The Scent of Apples, which received a Gold in the IPPY Awards 2012 and was selected for the White Ravens list of outstanding international books for children and young adults in the same year.