Shastra Deo was born in Fiji, raised in Melbourne, and lives in Brisbane. She holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts in Writing and English Literature, First Class Honours and a University Medal in Creative Writing, and a Master of Arts in Writing, Editing and Publishing from The University of Queensland. In 2018, she was completing her PhD in Creative Writing at The University of Queensland, focusing on phantom limbs in war literature.
Her short work has been published in a number of Australian periodicals, and her first poetry collection, The Agonist, won the 2016 Thomas Shapcott Prize and was shortlisted for 2018 the ALS Gold Medal.