Maria Takolander was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1973 to Finnish parents. She is a fiction writer, poet, essayist, independent scholar, public artist, reviewer, and interviewer.

Maria is the author of a collection of short stories, The Double (Text 2013), which won an Australia Council ‘New Work’ grant in development, was a finalist for the Melbourne Prize for Literature’s ‘Best Writing Award’, and was named a best book of 2013 by The Australian and other forums. The inaugural winner of the Australian Book Review Elizabeth Jolley short story prize, she is finishing a novel, supported by an Australia Council 'New Work' grant, a Neilma Sidney Travel Fund award, an Arteles Creative Centre residency, and an Australian Institute of Marine Science residency.

Maria is also the author of four books of poems: Trigger Warning (UQP 2021), which won the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and was shortlisted for the 2022 ASAL Gold Medal; The End of the World (Giramondo 2014), named one of the best books of the year by Australian Book Review and reviewed in the Los Angeles Review of Books; Ghostly Subjects (Salt 2009), short-listed for a 2010 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award; and the chapbook Narcissism (Whitmore Press 2005). A program about her poetry aired on Radio National in 2015, and she has performed her poetry on ABC TV and at numerous events, including the 2017 Medellín International Poetry Festival in Colombia.

Maria, who has a PhD in literature, is also an independent scholar, with numerous publications nationally and internationally. She is a regular reviewer for The Saturday Paper, and a regular interviewer at author events and festivals. As a public artist, her words can be found on bronze plaques in Central Geelong and at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.