Melanie Harding-Shaw is a speculative fiction writer, policy geek, and mother-of-three from Wellington, New Zealand. Her house is nestled near the Makara Peak mountain bike park, and she can often be found walking up the Salvation trail at Wrights Hill reserve. Her short fiction has appeared in a number of local and international publications, including newsroom, Takahē, The Arcanist, and Daily Science Fiction. Her longer fiction can be found on Amazon and Book Depository. Sadly, she has no shape-shifting familiars. She does have 10 neon tetras, but it’s not the same. She’s part of the forty percent of her household who has coeliac disease and she’s been known to drive 30 minutes just for gluten-free dumplings and donuts. She’d prefer a cure to living gluten-freely ever after, but you take what you can get. Contaminate her toaster at your peril.