Janie Brown was born in Epsom, England, raised in Glasgow, Scotland, and emigrated to Canada in 1984 to become a nurse at the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver. She has a Master’s in Psychology and a Master’s in Nursing. She has worked as an oncology nurse and counsellor for over 30 years and in 1995 founded the Callanish Society, a grassroots non-profit organization for people living with, and dying from, cancer. She presents internationally, has published in professional journals and writes a widely-read blog. In 2016, she received a Lloyd Symington Foundation grant to write this book.