Ashley Hay has written four books of non-fiction – The Secret: The Strange Marriage of Annabella Milbanke and Lord Byron; Gum: The Story of Eucalypts and Their Champions, and Herbarium and Museum (with photographer Robyn Stacey) – and has just completed her first novel, The Body in the Clouds.

A former literary editor of the Bulletin, she writes for publications including The Monthly, The Australian Way, Heat and Griffith REVIEW.

She was recently transplanted from the space of Sydney's Eucalyptus tereticornis to the lush Brisbanean world of mangoes, mangroves and Moreton Bay figs.