Helen Stewart was born in the winter of 1965. She grew up on a dairy farm in rural New Zealand, surrounded by cows, cats, dogs, and chickens. Helen rode motorbikes and horses and sometimes fell off both.

At the age of 19, she left New Zealand. Her travels took her to London, Scandinavia, Europe, and Australia. This route has been a recurring pattern in her life.

In the mid-80s, a chance meeting led her from a nightclub in London to the sweltering tarmac of Athens airport, and then a 14-hour boat ride to the Greek island of Lesbos. She was clothed in black, wore steel-toe work boots, and had a mane of long red hair that strangers would stop to photograph. Her two week Greek holiday turned into a two-year stay.

During her time in Greece, she travelled to Turkey and discovered a love of Byzantine mosaics. She sat in a room, in a palace in Istanbul, and determined her career.

Eventually, she returned to settle in Sydney, Australia, via a cold winter in Canada.

Helen studied the traditional art of mosaic tiling and in 1991 set up a studio in Palm Beach. She lived in an old wooden cottage looking over the sea, with a cat called Woody.

In the late 90s, she left Australia to visit Lesbos and live in London, for the third time.

On her return to Sydney, she set up a gallery selling her mosaics, while studying bespoke shoemaking.

The decade following she resided in New Zealand with her partner Grant Mears. Helen gave birth to their son Oliver in the same country hospital she had been born in, 41 years earlier. She had spent her pregnancy sitting with a herd of cows on the family farm. Three years later, their second son Finn was born at home.

Helen began writing while living in New Zealand. She wrote a series of children’s stories for her boys before starting her first novel, Phoebe McKinley and the Menopause Support Group. Helen wrote this novel after experiencing debilitating anxiety and panic attacks that correlated with her shifting hormones. She felt the need to write about menopause because she could not fathom how little help there was for women during this significant time in their lives.

Helen Stewart now lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her partner, two sons, three cats, and a veggie patch. These days she mostly writes, and sometimes works in mosaic, clay, and ink.