Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country — winner of the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award, The Victorian Prize for Literature, and the ABIA Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year, and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2021. The French translation, Les Animaux de ce pays, won the 2025 Prix Gargantua. Laura is also the author of Holiday in Cambodia, and her latest collection is Gunflower. She was the 2025 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellow in Cork, Ireland, and teaches Creative Writing at Massey University. Laura is based in Meanjin/Brisbane, Australia.