Kate Constable is a Melbourne writer who grew up in Papua New Guinea, where her father worked as a charter pilot. She is the author of the internationally-published fantasy trilogy, The Chanters of Tremaris, as well as The Taste of Lightning. As part of the Girlfriend fiction series she wrote Always Mackenzie and Winter of Grace (joint winner of the Children's Peace Literature Award, 2009) and co-authored Dear Swoosie (with Penni Russon). Her novel Cicada Summer was short-listed for the 2010 Prime Minister's Literary Award. Her most recent novel, Crow Country, won the 2012 Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award (younger readers) and the 2012 NSW Premier's Literature Award, Patricia Wrightson Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2012 WA Premier's Literary Award and the Adelaide Festival Award for Children's Literature. Kate lives in West Preston with her husband, two daughters and a bearded dragon.