Jean McNeil is the author of fourteen books, including six novels and a collection of short fiction. In 2005-6 she was writer in residence in Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). She has undertaken official residencies in the Falkland Islands, Svalbard, Norway, and aboard ship-based scientific expeditions to Greenland and across the Atlantic Ocean. She teaches at the University of East Anglia, where she is Reader in Creative Writing, and lives in Stoke Newington.