Luke Elworthy was born in India and comes from a family of publishers and farmers. Growing up in Wellington, he was educated at Church of England boarding school Christ's College, in Christchurch, and spent much of his school holidays at controversial Auckland cult, Centrepoint. He has worked in marketing, publicity and editorial roles with book publishers in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the Netherlands, and he has an MA in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University in Wellington. He lives with his family just outside Blenheim.