Claire Baylis was born in England and emigrated to New Zealand at sixteen. Her fiction has appeared in Landfall, Sport, Takahē, Turbine/Kapohau, anthologised in Horizons 4 and has been read on Radio New Zealand. Dice is her first novel to be published. It was written as part of a PhD in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington/Te Herenga Waka and was included on the Dean's List for being of the highest academic excellence. Claire studied law and then lectured in it for twelve years at Victoria University of Wellington/Te Herenga Waka before moving to Rotorua with her family. There she wrote, brought up her three children, worked as an interviewer and researcher for the Trans-Tasman Jury Study and set up a water safety programme targeting low-decile schools.