Ashleigh Young lives in Wellington, and works as a literary editor and teaches creative writing. Her first essay collection is Can You Tolerate This?, which won the Windham-Campbell Prize and the Ockham New Zealand Book Award for General Non-Fiction 2017.
'It was my first full-time job in a long while. The chairman of the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society and the four paid staff were there, all in winter coats.'