Jane Arthur is a poet, children's writer and editor. She was born in New Plymouth, and lives in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, where she manages and co-owns (with bestselling novelist Catherine Robertson) a small independent bookshop. Jane won the 2018 Sarah Broom Poetry Prize, judged by US poet Eileen Myles. In 2020, she was awarded an Emerging Writers Residency from the Michael King Writers Centre, and was a "40 Under 40" inspiring alumni of the University of Auckland. A founding editor of children's literature website The Sapling, Jane has twice served as a judge for the New Zealand Children's Book Awards (in 2020 she was convenor of the judging panel), and as a judge for the poetry category for the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Her first poetry collection, Craven, was published in 2019 by Victoria University Press. It was selected as one of the Top 10 Best New Zealand Poetry Collections of 2019 by The Spinoff and won the 2020 Jessie Mackay Prize for Poetry (Best First Book Award). ​A second collection, Calamities!, was published in 2023 by Te Herenga Waka (formerly Victoria) University Press. Brown Bird is her first novel for children.