Bel­la Shaier was born in Cher­nivt­si, Ukraine in the Sovi­et Union in 1957, and immi­grat­ed to Israel at the age of twelve. She holds an MA in lit­er­a­ture from Tel Aviv Uni­ver­si­ty. Shaier worked for twen­ty-five years as a com­put­er sys­tems ana­lyst before start­ing to write. In 2012, her col­lec­tion Children’s Mate was award­ed the Ramat Gan Prize for debut lit­er­a­ture and was short­list­ed for the Sapir Prize. Sand­cas­tles, a short film based on a sto­ry in Children’s Mate, was released in 2016. Many of Shaier’s sto­ries have been pub­lished in antholo­gies and lit­er­ary peri­od­i­cals. A trans­la­tion of Children’s Mate was pub­lished in 2021 in Ukraine.