Jean Louise Allen has been writing for most of her life. As a young woman, with four small children, Jean started writing freelance non-fiction articles for magazines and then wrote a non-fiction children's reader, which was used in schools in both New Zealand and Australia. Going back to full-time teaching with a young family halted her writing for some time. Then in 1993, Jean wrote her first piece of fiction - 'The Flatty' - which won her a prestigious Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Novice Award and was published in the New Zealand Listener. Her first book, Bitty by the river, was a collection of stories, two of which - 'The Flatty' and 'Fancy Work' - were read on Radio New Zealand National. River river raupo rye is Jean's first novel, but definitely not her last.