Janie Brown was born in Epsom, England, and raised in Scotland from the age of four. She has a Masters in Psychology at St Andrews University, and a Masters in Nursing at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She has worked for more than thirty years as an oncology nurse and counsellor, and in 1995 founded the Callanish Society, a grassroots non-profit organisation for people living with, and dying from, cancer, based in Vancouver (callanish.org). She presents nationally and internationally, has published in professional journals and writes a widely read blog.janiebrown.com