Louise Wallace is the author of four collections of poems, including This Is a Story About Your Mother, published in 2023. She is the founder and editor of Starling, an online journal showcasing the work of young writers from Aotearoa New Zealand, and the editor of ĹŚrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2022. She is a recipient of the Biggs Prize for Poetry and a Robert Burns fellow. Ash is her first novel.