Marietta McGregor was born in Tasmania and spent much of her childhood living on farms and orchards. At university she studied botany and zoology, attaining an honours degree in palynology for her study of the post-glacial vegetational history of a wilderness tarn. Moving to mainland Australia as a university biology tutor, she continued her palaeobotanical research. After leaving academia to raise three children, she designed over 100 private gardens in Australia’s ‛bush capital’, Canberra, and worked as a parliamentary guide through her journalism and professional writing diploma. Retiring as a career science communicator, Marietta came late to Japanese short-form poetry but at the time of writing has had over 200 haiku, senryu, tanka, haibun and haiga published in literary journals in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Europe and Japan. Her photo haiga have appeared on Japanese NHK TV in “Haiku Masters”, and her awards include first place in the Fifth Setouchi-Matsuyama Photo Haiku Contest, winner of the Australian Haiku Society’s inaugural haiga contest (her haiku paired with Ron Moss’s image), a merit award in the 27th ITO EN Oi Ocha New Haiku Contest, commended in the first Martin Lucas Award, and honourable mentions in the Irish Haiku Society’s 2015 International Competition and Yuki Teikei Haiku Society’s Tokutomi Contest in 2015 and 2016. She is a photography enthusiast and enjoys sumi-e painting. Marietta lives with her family between their Canberra home and a 1960s beach cottage on Australia’s Nature Coast.