Sharon Kirchner was a yoga teacher in Leura, Australia, for 15 years and studied yoga for most of her adult life. Her classes were known for their inclusive approach and catered to people of all ages, experience and physical fitness. Her students came from all over the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney. Sharon completed the manuscript for The Gentle Art of Yoga shortly before she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2015 and was unable to see the book through to publication before she died in 2017. However, thanks to her former students, friends and relatives, the book has been published posthumously as a memorial to her and so that her vast knowledge and experience of yoga is not completely lost to the world. Sharon is survived by her son Stephen and her two granddaughters, Octavia and Temperance.