Alison Thompson is a poet, short story writer and veterinarian. Born in Melbourne, she had a free-range childhood in the Western District region of Victoria where her parents owned the only general store in a tiny country town that had seven houses, two churches, a school, a grain depot, train station and no pub. After school she moved to Sydney and completed a veterinary science degree at Sydney university. She has spent most of her adult life has been spent in NSW where she still works part-time as a practising veterinarian.