Born and raised in Foam Lake, Saskatchewan, Helgason now lives in St. Albert, Alberta, near Edmonton, where she is a full-time writer. She is the great-granddaughter of Icelandic pioneers in Saskatchewan, a theme she often explores in her fiction. She is also an avid outdoors person, and the co-author of the bestselling Canadian Rockies Access Guide (Lone Pine). Her short story, “Bluffing”, about a bear attack, published in Fracture Patterns, is taught in secondary schools in Ontario, Germany, and Switzerland.  Her novel, Swimming into Darkness, was published by Coteau Books in 2001.