Danyl (pronounced Dan-ill) McLauchlan studied biology and computer science at Victoria University of Wellington, and worked and travelled in Europe, the Middle East and Asia before he returned to Wellington, where he works at the VUW School of Biology. He is the author of the comic noir novels Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley (VUP, 2013) and Mysterious Mysteries of the Aro Valley (VUP, 2016). His essays on literature, politics, economics, science and philosophy have been published in the Listener, The Spinoff and Granta. Danyl's first essay collection, Tranquillity and Ruin, is published by Victoria University Press in February 2021.