Iain Sharp was born in Glasgow and moved to New Zealand, living mainly in Auckland, when he was eight. He works as a manuscripts librarian in the Sir George Grey Special Collections department of Auckland Central City Library and also edits the book review pages for Metro. His publications include four volumes of poetry, a book about the Spirit of Adventure sail-training programme, Sail the Spirit (Reed 1994), the text for Real Gold: Treasures of Auckland City Libraries (AUP 2007) and the illustrated biography Heaphy (AUP 2008).