Janis Freegard has lived in New Zealand for much of her life but was born in South Shields, England, and wrote her first poems during a childhood that traversed South Africa and Australia, before fetching up in Whangarei at the age of 12. Fascinated by science, she has graduated with a BSc in Botany from The University of Auckland and a BSc(Hons) in Plant Ecology from Victoria University of Wellington. Her new collection of poems, Kingdom Animalia: The Escapades of Linnaeus, which combines her twin loves of science and writing, will be published by Auckland University Press in May 2011, coinciding with the 304th birthday of Carolus (Carl) Linnaeus on 23 May.