Tui was born in Te Awamutu but spent 40 years living in Auckland before returning to live in the Waikato in the year 2000.
She grew up in an Auckland sailing family, learned to sail at an early age and sailed the waters of the Hauraki Gulf through her childhood and teens.
Her first marital home was the traditional 28ft wooden Herreshoff yacht Patricia, in which she and her husband sailed the South Pacific without the help of any motor or electric power. In the ocean she met the many dolphins and whales who later became the characters in her stories.
Through her thirties forties and fifties, Tui took up many different kinds of competitive endurance sports. She remains a keen mountain-biker and road cyclist, but no longer competes.
She’s been a mother, a teacher, a web designer, and an author. At first Tui wrote for children and her stories and poetry were published by Learning Media, Shortland and Mallinson Rendel. Now she writes adult fiction.
Her first novel Ripple – a Dolphin Love Story was self-published in 2011, well-received internationally, and later commercially published in the Czech language. She is currently at work on the second draft of a sequel called Melody Malady.
Tui is delegate for the Northern Districts region of NZSA and the literature advisor on the Hamilton Arts Forum.
The Words in the Wind project is her vision of releasing the poetry of New Zealanders from the books that imprison them and professionally carving or painting it onto the walls, bridges, parks and pathways of Hamilton.