Eirlys Hunter was born in London and studied geography at Cambridge University before briefly becoming a primary school teacher. She moved to Wellington in 1983 with her husband Laurence, and the first two of their four children. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University.

Eirlys taught the Writing for Children undergraduate course at the International Institute for Modern Letters (IIML), Victoria University from 2006-2019; she has mentored many writers, led writing workshops for both adults and children, and was a judge for the Children’s Book Awards in 2013. She writes for both children and adults and her stories have been published in Landfall, SPORT, various anthologies and broadcast on National Radio.