Marty Smith grew up on a farm where the hills echoed her father’s swearing back to him, making particular stresses stand out. She attributes that to her interest in sound effects, and her interest in layering to her father’s creative and cumulative strings of adjectives when he was really fired up. She learned that Action and Energy = Sound.

Marty is a Wellington poet who lives in Hawkes Bay and with the help of an arts grant from Creative New Zealand is writing a non-fiction book about the dangerous work of people in racing stables and what they risk, and why.