Jenna Heller grew up in the United States, but has lived her entire adult life in Aotearoa New Zealand in Diamond Harbour, Banks Peninsula, and New Brighton, Christchurch. She was runner-up for the 2021 Caselberg International Poetry Prize, and has had poems shortlisted for the NZSA Heritage Awards and the takahē Monica Taylor Poetry Prize. Her short fiction has won National Flash Fiction Day and the Australian CLA Best Prose Prize.

The End of the Beginning, a collection of flash fiction, was published in 2024 by At the Bay | I te Kokoru. The Dancing Bicycle is her first collection of poetry. Jenna is the current chair of the Canterbury Poets’ Collective, mentors writers through the Hagley Writers’ Institute, and has tutored at Write On: School for Young Writers. One summer at the age of six, she learned how to juggle using croquet balls, and as a teenager to juggle clubs and fire torches. After juggling, and before throwing herself fully into her writing, she sang baritone in the champion Rhythm of Canterbury Sweet Adeline’s barbershop chorus.