Ella O'Keefe grew up in Sydney but has lived in Melbourne for almost a decade. She was the winner of the 2015 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize and the joint winner of the 2018 Harold Tribe Poetry Award. She completed her PhD in literary studies at Deakin University in 2019 and has been employed variously as a university tutor and researcher, and as a library worker for SBS Radio and in public libraries. Her radio work has been broadcast on 2SER FM, FBI Radio and Radio National.