Jack Lasenby was born in Waharoa, New Zealand in 1931. During the 1950s he was a deer-culler and possum trapper in the Urewera Country. He is a former school teacher, lecturer in English at the Wellington Teachers’ College, and editor of New Zealand’s School Journal.
Jack Lasenby held the Sargeson Fellowship in 1991, the Writer’s Fellowship at the Victoria University of Wellington in 1993, and was the Writer in Residence at the Dunedin College of Education in 1995. He is the author of many novels for children and young adults, including award-winning books The Lake, The Conjuror, The Waterfall and The Battle of Pook Island. He has been the recipient of New Zealand’s most prestigious children’s fiction awards: the Esther Glen Medal, the Aim Children’s Book Award, and the NZ Post Children’s Book Award.
Because We Were the Travellers is the first title in the award-winning ‘Travellers Quartet’; it received an Honour Award in the 1998 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. The second title, Taur, won the senior fiction category of the same awards in 1999. The Shaman and the Droll, the third title, was a finalist in the awards in 2000 and Kalik the fourth was a finalist in 2002.
Jack Lasenby lives in Wellington where he cares for his much-loved garden. He’s presently writing a series about the notorious ‘Aunt Effie’.