M.T.C. Cronin's work first appeared in print in early 1993 and since then she has written several collections of poetry. Published internationally, she has won many major Australian literary awards, including the prestigious Gwen Harwood Memorial Poetry Prize, and two major prizes for her first Shearsman volume 1-100. Her work has been widely anthologised and translated and her 2001 collection, Talking to Neruda's Questions, has appeared in Spanish, Swedish and Italian translations. Born in 1963 in Merriwa in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia, Cronin grew up in Caloundra, Queensland and following school attended first the University of Queensland and then later the University of New South Wales, the University of Technology and the University of Sydney, studying political science, law, literature and creative writing. After being employed for most of the nineties in Law, she has in recent years taught literature and creative writing at primary and secondary schools and also at various universities and writers' centres. Her poetry has been set in texts in numerous schools and at tertiary level in both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Presently, she lives in Maleny, near Brisbane, with her partner and three daughters.