James Norcliffe is a Christchurch-based, award-winning poet with six collections published, plus seven novels for young adults. The Loblolly Boy won the junior fiction category in the 2010 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards and was shortlisted for the 2010 Esther Glen Award. James teaches in Lincoln University’s Foundation Studies department, and lives with his wife Joan Melvyn in Church Bay, on a sloping property dotted with half-grown trees overlooking Lyttelton Harbour.