Robert Berold has published four collections of poetry and four books of non-fiction. As editor of New Coin from 1989 to 1999, he sought out and published much of the groundbreaking new poetry being written in that period, later editing a selection of these into the anthology It All Begins. He has edited over 40 books by South African poets, several of them published under his Deep South imprint. For most of his working life he has been a rural development worker and a freelance editor of technical books. Currently he coordinates the MA programme in creative writing at Rhodes University.