ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen Heath lives in the seaside village of Paekākāriki, on the Kapiti Coast. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at the IIML in 2009. Her poetry has been published in many journals in New Zealand and Australia. Most recently she’s had a chap-book of poems published by Seraph Press called Watching for Smoke (2009). Helen also blogs at helenheath.com. ‘Radiant’ is about Marie Skłodowska Curie(1867–1934), who was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity, the first person honoured with two Nobel Prizes and the first female professor at the University of Paris. Curie and her husband, Pierre, discovered radium. She spent the remainder of her life performing radiation research and studying radiation therapy. Her constant exposure to radiation led to her contracting leukaemia.