Kristel Thornell was born in Sydney, and has lived in Italy, Mexico, Canada, Finland and the US, where she is now based in upstate New York. She has degrees in Italian Studies and English, and a PhD from the Writing and Society Research Group at the University of Western Sydney. She has published short fiction, poetry, reviews, essays, and the novel, Night Street, for which she co-won the Australian / Vogel's Literary Award, and won the Dobbie Literary Award for a first book, and the Barbara Ramsden Award for book of the year. She was shortlisted for the Glenda Adams Award and the Christina Stead Prize for fiction in the NSW Premier's Awards, and was named one of The Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelists in 2011.