Emma Neale was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, and has lived in the US and England. She has a Ph.D. from University College London, and is the author of  four novels: Night Swimming, Little Moon, Double Take and  Relative Strangers (all published by Random House). She is also the author of three collections of poetry: Sleeve Notes, How to Make a Million (both from Random House) and Spark (from Steele Roberts). In 2000 she was the recipient of the Todd / Creative New Zealand New Writer's Bursary, and in 2006 received a New Zealand Book Council International Writers' Exchange grant, which enabled her to appear at the Sydney Writers' Festival. She has acted as selecting editor for Creative Juices: an anthology of new writing; for the Best New Zealand Poems website 2004, and for Swings and Roundabouts: Poems on Parenthood, which features poets from New Zealand, Australia, the US and England. She works as an editor for Longacre Press.