Bernadette Hall is a poet, editor, teacher and playwright. She was born in Central Otago, NZ and studied classics at the University of Otago. She has published five well-regarded collections of poetry including The Persistent Levitator which was shortlisted for the 1995 New Zealand Book Awards. Her most recent collection is Settler Dreaming which was published by Victoria University Press in 2001. Her work has been anthologised in many collections and journals and for 10 years she was poetry editor of Takahe. She has also written two plays and a musical. In 1996 she was the Burns Fellow at the University of Otago. She lives in Christchurch, NZ.. One of her poems "The Lay Sister" was selected for the online collection Best NZ Poems 2001. Settler Dreaming was one of three collections shortlisted in the 2003 Tasmania Pacific Region Poetry Prize along with books by notable Australian poets Les Murray and John Tranter.