Anya Bergman became interested in the witch trials of Vardo and the vivid folk tales of the north while living in Norway. Travelling to the Steilneset memorial, in which Louise Bourgeois and Peter Zumthor commemorated persecuted as witches, she became fascinated by their stories. Now resident in Edinburgh, she graduated with distinction from the Creative Writing programme at Edinburgh Napier University. She is working on her next novel, which unites two women and two time periods of global unrest and upheaval.