Damien Wilkins' short stories first appeared in Sport and other periodicals in the late 1980s. His story collection, The Veteran Perils (1990), was joint winner of the inaugural Heinemann Reed Fiction Award and his novel The Miserables (1993) won the 1994 New Zealand Book Award for Fiction. Other novels include Nineteen Widows Under Ash (2000), which was a runner up in the Fiction section of the 2001 Montana New Zealand Book Awards and Chemistry (2002). He has also published a collection of poetry, The Idles (1993), and an essay in the Four Winds Press essay series, When Famous People Come to Town (2002). He has taught creative writing in both New Zealand and America, and currently teaches the renowned Creative Writing Masters programme at Victoria University. Damien has also written drama for television and radio.

Diane Brown's publications include two collections of poetry (Before the Divorce we go to Disneyland, which was the winner of the NZSA Best First Book of Poetry in 1997, and Learning to Lie Together in 2004), two novels – If the Tongue Fits (1999) and Eight Stages of Grace, which was a finalist in the Montana Book Awards in 2002, and a travel memoir Liars and Lovers (2004). She was a Buddle Finlay Sargeson Fellow in 1997. Diane is currently writing a novel, Hooked, and a prose/poetic work, Here Comes Another Vital Moment. She is the coordinator and tutor for the Aoraki Polytechnic Advanced Fiction Writing Course.