Robyn White was born and raised in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa. She grew up, always on or near the ocean, during the protest driven era of the 1960s and 1970s. She majored in Geography at Auckland University, before moving to Australia where she worked onboard a prawn trawler and a charter yacht working Australia's northern coast. From 1988- 1994, she worked for Greenpeace sailing on a number of historic protest voyages. She currently lives in Tāmaki Makaurau with her long-time partner with whom she has three adult children. In 2016, Robyn received a Creative NZ mentorship award to work with author Deborah Shepard to write this book.