Zetta Elliott was born in 1972 and raised in Canada. She made her first visit to New York City and to her cousin Lil's home in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights in 1979. Elliott moved to Brooklyn in 1994 and has been a permanent United States resident since the late 1990s. She received a doctoral degree in American Studies from New York University in 2003. She is a poet, playwright, essayist, author, blogger and publisher. Her award-winning books include the picture book, "Bird," and the novel "Ship of Souls." "The Deep" was published in 2013. In 2015, she was the writer-in-residence at the Weeksville Heritage Center. A self-described Black feminist writer committed to social justice, Elliott continues to live in Brooklyn.