Clare Moleta was born in New Zealand (a Pakeha) and grew up in Western Australia. Her father, Vincent Moleta, is an author, translator and founder of Aeolian Press which published her story, The Little Bird of Bethlehem, when she was in primary school. After some years overseas, she returned to Australia, where she ran a street theatre group, trained at John Bolton's Theatre School in Melbourne and completed a Diploma in Writing and Editing at RMIT.
After a long break, she also began to get published again; writing on the arts and social and environmental justice for Inpress magazine and Full Haus, Stage Left and Friends of the Earth quarterlies. Her short stories were published in Crowd Control magazine, shortlisted in HQ's short story competition, performed at spoken word events and projected on city walls as part of the Scarab installation project.
For four years she also worked with creative future collective; a big puppet and theatre group based in Melbourne's Trades Hall, and during this time she wrote a handbook of creative techniques for activists and community groups. Since moving to Wellington in 2005 Clare has been a finalist in the Katherine Mansfield short story competition and won a New Travel Writer category at the annual Travcom travel media awards. She is now writing travel pieces for the Herald on Sunday and AA Directions magazine and her story, 'God's Brain and the Souls of Birds' was included in the latest edition of New Zealand literary journal Sport.
