J.S. Harry was born in 1939 in South Australia, and has lived in Sydney for most of her life. She has worked as an editor for Radio National and has held a residency at Australian National University. She has published eight collections of poetry, including the deer under the skin (1971), Hold, for a little while, and turn gently (1979), A Dandelion for Van Gogh (1985), The Life on Water and the Life Beneath (1995), Selected Poems (1995), winner of the NSW Premier's Award for Poetry, Sun Shadow, Moon Shadow (2000), If…And the Movable Ground (2004), and her complete collection of Peter Henry Lepus rabbit poems, Not Finding Wittgenstein (Giramondo, Australia, 2007; Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2012).