James Norcliffe is a poet as well as an author of children's books. He has been awarded the 2012 University of Otago College of Education's Writer in Residence. In 2011 he was a guest at the Festival International de la Poesie at Trois Rivieres in Canada. The Loblolly Boy won the 2010 NZ Post Junior Fiction Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Esther Glen Medal.