Gwen Harwood is one of Australia's best-known poets. She was born in Brisbane in 1920 and lived there until her marriage in 1945, when she moved to Hobart, Tasmania. Harwood's poetry and critical writing appeared regularly in Australian literary journals from the 1960s. She published eight books of poetry. In 1989 she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for services to literature. She wrote under the names of Francis Geyer, Walter Lehmann, Miriam Stone and T.F. Kline. She died in 1995.

Greg Kratzmann, born on 23 February 1949, was an academic and editor with a particular interest in the poetry and correspondence of Gwen Harwood. He was born in Toowoomba and educated at the University of Queensland, ANU and the University of Edinburgh. He edited a number of volumes relating to Gwen Harwood including A steady storm of correspondence: selected letters of Gwen Harwood 1943-1995, and, with Alison Hoddinott, Gwen Harwood: Collected poems 1943-1995. He died on 12 April 2021.

Alison Hoddinott was born in Hobart, Tasmania. She studied at the University of Tasmania. Greg Kratzmann and Alison Hoddinott edited a collection of Gwen Harwood's poems, published by UQP in 2003. She was a Senior Lecturer at the School of English, Communication and Theatre at University of New England, Armidale. She died on the 28 November 2022.

Jim Scullard was G.C. Kratzmann's brother-in-law.