Shelley Burr grew up on Newcastle's beaches and her grandparents' property in Glenrowan, and on the road between the two. When not writing, Shelley is working to establish a small permaculture farm and is studying agriculture at the University of New England, with a focus on soil science. She is an alumnus of the ACT Writers' Hardcopy program (2018) and a Varuna fellow. WAKE was a Top Five bestseller, won the CWA Debut Dagger Award in 2019, was shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards Debut Novel Award, the Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award and the Bath Novel Award. Shelley also won the ABIA's 2023 Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year for WAKE. RIPPER is her second novel.
