Peri Hoskins, a child of the twentieth century, was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He is the second son of a family of five children, four boys and a girl. He is of mixed Maori (Ngapuhi) and Anglo-Celtic ancestry. Peri grew up in Whangarei, Northland, New Zealand, a provincial city then home to about 30,000 people. He was educated at Whangarei Boys’ High School where he twice won a national essay competition. After completing high school and winning the school prizes for English, History and Geography, Peri went to Auckland University where he studied law and the humanities, including history and English literature.

Peri was substantially based in Australia between 1985 and 2005. He completed his study of law and the humanities at the University of Sydney including several courses in philosophy. He worked as a lawyer in New South Wales before embarking on a 1995 five-month road trip all around Australia. This road trip comprises the material for his soon to be published book, East. Peri subsequently worked as a lawyer in both New South Wales and Queensland, and developed his current specialisation in legal work – civil litigation. In December 1999 Peri travelled to the Kingdom of Tonga to be in the first country in the world to see in the new millennium. The diary of his three weeks in Tonga has become Millennium – A Memoir, a soon to be published book of creative nonfiction. In 2004 Peri completed a post graduate diploma in film and television production at Queensland University of Technology.

Peri now lives, writes and works as a barrister (being a self-employed lawyer) in his Maori ancestral homeland of Northland (Tai Tokerau), New Zealand (Aotearoa).